At issue is the most public endorsement possible (a keynote speech, and then a 1.25M donation) by a YC partner, and YC's refusal to speak out about it, or distance itself from this extraordinary gesture of support.

The vast majority of YC partners' personal positions are strongly pro-Clinton. You can see that just by following sama, paulg, or paultoo on Twitter.

I don't demand that Altman and Graham know exactly what to do about this. I don't demand that they "fire" Thiel (they can't, as Thiel isn't an employee). I don't even demand that they strike him from the roster of Partners to the Regional Partner of YC. I understand that this stuff is complicated and that there's more going on behind the scenes of these relationships than we know.

Unfortunately, both Altman and Graham are being supportive of Thiel, despite the fact that he donated $1.25MM to Trump's campaign just days ago.

For me personally - I actually have relatively few people in my life that are Trump supporters. But this is mostly an accident of demographics - I went to an elite liberal arts college in what is literally the most liberal region of the country, I worked at Google, I live in the Bay Area, my mom's from NYC, and my dad's an immigrant. I have friends who have family that are hard-core Trump supporter, as well as family myself.

It would never occur to me to stop associating with them because of their political views, or the political views of their associates. They have their beliefs, I have mine, and we just don't discuss the subjects where we are diametrically opposed. We interact on the common ground that we do have.

According to my principles, the calls for YC to disavow Thiel or stop associating with him are obnoxious for the same reason I believe Trump is unfit to be president. They divide the world into "people like us" and "people against us", and then seek to build a wall between the two groups. If you believe that it should be "us and us" rather than "us vs them", then that includes reaching out to people with whom you disagree and finding the parts that you do agree on.

I see a significant difference between private political opinions (including their expression by voting), and a public political act like a convention keynote speech.

It's important in a pluralistic society that we live and work with people with very different political views. But Thiel doesn't just have his contrarian opinions, he is actively working to promote the candidacy of someone who is a threat to our basic democratic institutions.

To me that's a significant difference, and the reason it calls for a public and forceful response.

To me, the right answer to bad speech is better speech. It's fine to disassociate from people if you dislike them - but there's a big difference between disliking them and disliking one position they hold, or even more tenuously, disliking the people they associate with. Most people associate with a lot of other people, and these networks grow ever bigger as you get older and more powerful. If you start disqualifying people based on the company they keep, the set of people that you actually like will get both ever-smaller and more monocultural. Some people like that - I suspect many Trump supporters wish the world could be divided into black & white-Christians-who-act-like-us - but I think you'd lose a lot in this.

I don't want Graham and Altman to be more vocal about Clinton, I want them to say something substantive about Thiel, and why (or whether) they are comfortable continuing to do business with him.

But Paul Graham and Sam Altman are comprehensively wrong about Thiel, and I would be doing them no favors at all to pretend otherwise.

I'm Catholic. I come from an Irish Catholic family. I have at last count 13,492 first cousins. I do not know all the names of my aunts and uncles. But I do know that most of them are... "aggressively" pro-life. Some of them support Trump, because they feel a moral obligation to vote for whomever is going to appoint pro-life judges. I do not hold Trump support against my family.

Despite the fact that half of HN seems to think I'm a Republican, I am not. But I have plenty of Republican friends. Most of them have repudiated Trump and think he's a disaster for the party. But some of them believe in good faith that the cause of limited government is better served by Trump than by Hillary Clinton. I think they're gravely mistaken. But I don't hold that against them.

I'm fine with doing business with any of these people.

However, if you're in the audience at a Trump rally whooping and hollering your approval for Trump's claim that some women are too ugly to have been assaulted by him, I want nothing to do with you, at least until you've repudiated that disgusting notion.

If you're the person telling reporters that you're going to perform much-needed "racial profiling" at polling places on election day, to intimidate minorities from voting, I want nothing to do with you, at least until you've repudiated that disgusting notion.

If you're a billionaire who has stood on the largest imaginable stage and told the nation on live television that Donald Trump is the only honest candidate, and who donated $1.25MM to the Trump campaign after he threatened to jail his political opponent and started a national tour inciting white voters to distrust the votes of minorities in a rigged election, then you aren't a supporter of the Trump campaign. You are part of the Trump campaign. I want nothing to do with you.

Nobody who claims they'll "join the resistance" after Trump wins can coherently argue otherwise.

I don't demand that Altman and Graham sever ties in any formal way with Thiel. I don't know what that would entail or what's going on behind the scenes. But I do require them not to support Thiel publicly --- at least, if they're going to claim to be part of the resistance against Trump. You can't oppose Trump but defend the Trump campaign.

There are some interesting parallels between the two cases. In Eich's case, one of the reasons I decided I had been too hasty was that I didn't see anyone accusing him of actual discriminatory behavior as Mozilla's CTO. Apparently he had done well at keeping his politics out of the workplace. That seemed to me an argument for granting him the same consideration.

I don't really understand Thiel's politics. Some of the things he complained about in his RNC speech I understand and agree with as issues, though I don't understand why he thinks Trump is likely to address them. (I do understand why he thinks Hillary is unlikely to, though.) I haven't read any of Thiel's political writings, except for one widely-commented-on piece [0]. He doesn't sound to me like a racist; I'm less sure he's not sexist but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on that. His reasons for supporting Trump seem to be highly idiosyncratic. If he's just trying to make the point that there's danger in giving the Democrats too much power, well, I don't disagree with that, though I probably disagree on how much is too much. Anyway, the point is, just as in Eich's case, there seem to be mitigating factors.

Well. I don't know the answer, but I offer the following thoughts. It's easier to demonize someone you don't know personally. That in itself suggests that ostracism should be a weapon of last resort.

But I understand your anger. If I were in YC and Thiel offered to invest in my startup, I don't know whether I would take his money.

[0] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...

* Eich was ousted from a full-time job. Thiel is not an employee of YC.

* Eich's beliefs were well within the mainstream; Barack Obama campaigned in opposition to marriage equality.

* Eich's support for Prop 8 was quiet. It was mined out of a database and used against him. So far as I can see, he had not made any Mozilla employees uncomfortable. He didn't get on stage at the RNC and use his position at Mozilla to suggest that Silicon Valley opposed marriage equality.

* Eich's support for Prop 8 was relatively insignificant. In addition to being such an important Trump surrogate that his actions make the front page of CNN, Thiel donated millions and bundled millions more to the Trump campaign.

* For that matter, marriage equality is a substantially different issue than Trumpism. Trump believes Muslims, including US citizens, should be prevented from entering the US. He proposes a religious test for entry into the country. He believes his political opponents should be jailed. He is campaigning against the very legitimacy of the election he's running in. Trump is running against the very idea of equality of citizenship. You can't say all those things about the belief that LGBT people should be denied marriage rights --- in fact, you have pretty good evidence of the difference: thankfully, the cause of marriage equality crushed the cause of traditional marriage.

The campaign to oust Eich from his job at Mozilla was wrong. I didn't support it at the time and I don't support it now. I do not feel that way, even a little bit, about the call for Graham and Altman to live up to their own words about Trump.

From Thiel's RNC speech: "Instead of going to Mars, we have invaded the Middle East."

I am (please read this in dry english english), let us say, not exactly a fan of Mr. Trump.

On the other hand, I'm also ... not exactly a fan ... of bombing the crap out of a shit load of muslims either.

So I'm not honestly sure that one is necessarily as clear cut as it might be, given history.

I'm rooting for Hillary from my side of the pond because of, well, every single other reason you mention and a bunch of others too. But still. I think Thiel's wrong, but I think I can see how he logic-ed himself into his current position.

So you will personally fail to condemn a disagreeable action as long as you judge it to be ineffective?

In other words, effective support for immoral ideas (in your view) is the objectionable thing?

* Eich was ousted from a full-time job. Thiel is not an employee of YC.

We don't normally consider CEOs to be the sort of person where we have to worry about their ability to find another job.

* Eich's beliefs were well within the mainstream; Barack Obama campaigned in opposition to marriage equality.

That's a difference of degree, and a smaller one than we would both prefer; Trump did manage to get nominated, after all. I don't think you can say (alas) that Trumpism is completely out of the mainstream in 2016.

* Eich's support for Prop 8 was quiet.

True, but does it really count for much?

* Eich's support for Prop 8 was relatively insignificant.

Another difference of degree. For all we know, Eich may have donated a larger fraction of his bank account than Thiel did.

* For that matter, marriage equality is a substantially different issue than Trumpism.

Marriage equality is one issue and Trump has raised many, that's true. But I think the attitudes in which Prop. 8 support was rooted, and those in which Trumpism is rooted, are essentially identical. For instance, a rearguard action against marriage equality is still being fought in Alabama, and I expect my relatives there are big supporters of both Roy Moore [0] and Trump. In fact it's interesting, now that I think of it, that Trump has not attacked gays; it would certainly play well with much of his audience. Maybe it says something about how far we've come, or maybe he's just too busy attacking Mexicans, Muslims, and women to bother with gays.

A better argument might be that Prop. 8 was just a return to the status quo ante, while Trumpism is an existential threat to the nation. Why a smart man like Peter Thiel can't see that is beyond me too. But I can see the argument that Thiel is not evil, just deluded.

(P.S. You're a brave man, using asterisks on HN :-)

[0] http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/10/lawyer_t...

Are you really going to tell me you think YC should dissociate from Thiel? I grant your point -- my argument had a bug -- but I would think you would support the spirit in which I offered it.

Anyway, since you're here in person, let me say to you directly: I'm sorry I signed that OkCupid petition.

IAC (Ok's parent co) was doing a deal with Mozilla, I'm pretty sure we could have backed them off, had I remained.

I can't say more right now, but I'll note that a headhunter linked-in-mailed me late in 2014 asking if I wanted to be CTO of Match/Ok/etc. -- the IAC dating services.

https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/543545707152429056

Too funny!

Another way to look at it is: any cousin of mine hooting and hollering about black folks and "too-ugly" assault victims is no friend of mine, either.

"Hooting and hollering" at offensive speech is different than deciding Trump represents a better option than Hillary and defeating her is worth spending millions of dollars.

And how should any of this be connected to one's professional opportunities?

Hillary's a bully and a crook, but I'll maintain relationships with anyone who votes for her. Trump is a terrible human being and a clown, but likewise I'll maintain relationships with people who vote for him. People who laugh at "she's too ugly to assault" I already don't speak to... independent of their political leanings.

So you're more a consequentialist than a deontologist, okay.

Thiel knows Trump is a horrible person. He donated $1.25MM the day after Trump made national news for campaigning on the illegitimacy of the election itself, and for claiming that the women accusing him were too ugly to have been assault victims.

Clearly everyone would find it incredibly wrong if someone would withdraw support for someone just because they supported Hillary Clinton, and while most people here think Trump is much worse, he is the head of one of the 2 major parties. You might not like it, but his actions and views do represent a significant portion of the mainstream (which is why this isn't the same as supporting someone from the KKK, which does thankfully lie outside the mainstream).

Note: I am in no way endorsing or defending Trump, or Thiel.

The bottom line is that Thiel believes the 'positives' of a Trump presidency would outweigh the negatives.

The expected value is positive versus a status quo Clinton administration so he should support Trump.

He lays his priority set out quite clearly in his RNC speech: http://time.com/4417679/republican-convention-peter-thiel-tr... and if you agree with his central premises of a structurally broken economy, excessive foreign intervention etc then tbh Trump is the only viable candidate even after recent headlines, particularly if you believe in the strength of US institutions to curb any excesses.

If Thiel's position were based on hatred then I think it would be another story, but as it is, again given acceptance of the possibility of his central premises being correct and Trump being a 'viable' (as in could win vs Stein or Johnson) major party candidate his support is rational.

Across America Trump will win fifty million votes or more and while some of them may be deplorables voting for deplorable reasons, many will be voting based on implicit expected value metrics.

Allegedly, in the same way that HRC is allegedly a rapist apologist and allegedly threatened a rape victim of her husband. I don't understand why Clinton supporters try to ignore this but harp on Trump constantly. The supporters on both sides use tremendously dishonest hyperbole and it makes everyone look like ignorant, brainless assholes.

How about sticking to talking points that are of real substance? Apparently we're too busy screaming at each other about how Trump wants to fuck all non-whites to death and Hillary is actually Lord Voldemort.

The stuff about Clinton is mostly verifiably false. (see Snopes for example http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-freed-child-rapist-lau...)

That's the difference.

Disruption creates many losers as well as winners, not everything is a positive sum game.

Indifference towards second order impacts due to a focus on the primary goal (economy is really really bad about to explode etc) is pretty common.

I think Thiel does acknowledge some of the ugliness though looking at his speech, he's just focused on the necessity for immediate change versus status quo/gradual shifts & calls for him to be disavowed for doing so still don't ring quite true.

It is quite interesting that it is so dangerous for your career to hold "alternative" views (wrt. to mainstream ideologies there) in a place that has cultish adoration of diversity as an end in itself.

Even more so interesting to see American progressives wear the clothes of puritanism and McCarthysm. The fascist menace is threatening American society! Quick! You must make sure that those two engineers who have said they would vote Trump lose their jobs! The fascists want to infiltrate every layer of society to bring down the glorious progress. Call this hotline and get them arrested and tried for treason against Progress. Otherwise, brace yourself to hear the drums of nationalism beat again and bring the world on the brinks of genocide. If you are not with us you are against us!

Anyway, good on Sam for not taking part in that collective hysteria. I must say the hang-over from the current kool-aid binge drinking party is going to be harsh. So far this attitude of shaming people for not embracing the beautiful and unquestionable axiology of Progress has only been furthermore polarization and resentment.

If you want to allow companies to fire their employees based on the political stance they take during a national election; you should, by the same logic, allow them to discriminate based on gender, age or ethnicity. Because yes, what you are essentially saying is that corporations are not politically neutral agents. They can hold and enforce ideologies when it comes to their human management practices.

Which, of course, does not fly well when it starts impacting you negatively because you do not hold the "right" opinions.

If corporations are expected to be truly "politically neutral agents", then IBM providing services to the Nazis was nothing wrong (cries of "Godwin!" go here). I mean, money's money, right? They have a responsibility to their shareholders to be profitable, and genocide is just a political question, on which the German people have spoken (and even if they didn't, again, whether democracy is good or not is also a political question).

But no, it doesn't work that way. We do actually expect corporations to be political to some extent. The only real question here is what that extent is. I don't really have a problem drawing the line at someone like Trump. If you do, that's fine, but all that pompous talk about puritanism and McCarthysm is misdirected.

Unless, of course, you really do think that IBM was in the right.

You (perhaps unconsciously) did not address the full assertion which precisely refers to human management practices where the two atomic operations (so to speak) are hiring (append) and firing (remove).

To settle according to what ethical framework corporations must abide when they do business with other entities is a vast topic that goes well beyond the particular scope of this HN thread. In case I was not clear, by politically neutral agents I am referring to the fashion by which corporations consume and exchange human capital within a defined social body. This is not the same as saying that a company is apolitical; since they do that all the time (through lobbying on single-issue bills etc.).

>If corporations are expected to be truly "politically neutral agents", then IBM providing services to the Nazis was nothing wrong

As I said, this is off-topic. Though I am a bit amused by how you justify your own authoritarianism (motivated by your morals) by pointing to Trump's supposed. Do you also think that it was unethical for journalists to let Trump participate to the debate? After all, it provides a platform for his rancid, heinous, dangerous, seditious, genocidal ideas for millions of Americans to hear. Or that hunting down and firing the three (let's be generous and say four) software engineers that support Trump at company X is a necessary condition to prevent <literally_genocide> or <literally_Hitler> taking power.

It is rarely a good idea to crackdown on individuals because they hold a set of beliefs that does not fit your schema for "Good and honourable things to believe in". Especially during an election period where plurality is a necessary condition for democracy to work.

I was specifically addressing the assertion that corporations should get a free pass on any indirect political effects of their business decisions, because they're apolitical by definition. IBM was a counterexample to that - their decision to sell their goods and services to Germany was very much a business decision, but it was also unavoidably political (as would be any other decision - if they refused the sale, it would have also been political).

Hence, corporations are not politically neutral agents. From there follows that they are responsible for the political consequences of their actions. The degree of indirection involved reduces said responsibility, and can remove it entirely if it's remote enough; the important point is that this is a matter of degree, and not an absolute.

So we can agree to disagree where the appropriate line for such responsibility lies, so long as we agree that there is a line. But when you argue about where to draw said line, "corporation is a politically neutral agent" (or, to rephrase it in more familiar terms, "nothing personal, just business") is not an argument in support of any particular placement. It has to be decided on other grounds - for most people, I'd imagine it would be their subjective utilitarian assessment of how damaging the resulting politics are, or can potentially be.

No, I don't think companies should be firing individuals merely for expressing their desire to vote for Trump - although depending on what the company does, it may be a prudent business decision. But there are degrees of support that go beyond voting.

Note that I did not, and do not, call for any government actions pertaining to this. It's all in the realm of private choices, exercising one's freedom of speech and freedom of association. I don't see how this has anything to do with authoritarianism. Trump's platform, in contrast, is widespread state-sponsored discrimination, so I stand by my assertion that it is authoritarian.

>is morally reprehensible.

And I think that this is the heart of the issue here. That you want to punish people for holding certain beliefs.

Would it be ok to fire someone because they are not a strict adherent of veganism while you are? After all, if you consider it morally reprehensible to kill innocent animals you are only left to contemplate the evilness of those who partakes in those activities. And evilness must be fought right? So fire that person.

>Being fired was an appropriate response in my eyes. Let's reframe this situation to make it more powerful: support Eich was against the right to marry across racial lines. Then certainly you would be for his firing, right?

Presumption of innocence is a cornerstone of legalism in the West. It establishes that an individual is innocent until proven otherwise. Holding a certain belief does not make you mechanically guilty of a crime. Partaking in a criminal activity does. Has this person hindered the enforcement of democratic laws because of their beliefs? Is this person a sworn public servant representing the state? No. Then why should that person be fired for disagreeing with you?

To broaden the discussion, we could take the example of eugenism which the catholic church has fought tough and nails during a time it was considered futurist and full of potential. Nowadays, the consensus is to consider it an unethical and reprehensible practice. My point being: the consensus changes and not linearly. What is accepted today might be looked back as an aberration or a crime against common sense. The only way you can guarantee that a society's morality is not reified is by allowing dissenting opinions to exist as long as they are passive and part of a discussion.

Yes, that means being potentially exposed to some nasty things (according to you) but you will survive it. Trust me, you will.

Just because you disagree doesn't mean their opinion is less valid. Because an opinion is political doesn't mean it doesn't affect peoples trust and not wanting someone in a position of power when you don't trust them is a valid opinion just as much as the opposite. Innocent until proven otherwise is a legal concept, free speech instead emphasizes everyone right to have their own opinion regardless of its merit.

If one of your employees advocates for genocide, go ahead and fire them. If one of your employees supports a candidate who advocates for genocide -- well, it might call into question their judgment, but maybe they like the rest of the platform and think that the call for genocide is mere hyperbole.

Let's bring it to be less extreme. Is it "ok" for an employee to be reprimanded for supporting the KKK? What about David Duke who formerly led the KKK? What about if they are a member of Stormfront?

There are groups and positions that cross a line that is acceptable and that line is different for each person. We can delegate to the government - I.e. Groups that are "officially" designated as hate groups - but many people don't.

There are many people (Trump supporters AND critics) that interpret some of Trump's most defining and consistent policies as racist, sexist, islamaphobic and xenophobic. So Trump to many people is beyond their line of acceptability. And therefore the supporters are too.

The messiness of the situation is that it is so subjective despite there being an objective component to it (objective is: unacceptable opinions should not be tolerated. Subjective is: what is unacceptable?)

Stop right there. There is a constitutionally protected right to support a political candidate. You should not be punishing someone for exercising their constitutionally protected rights; the fact that a candidate is reprehensible does not justify exercising collective punishment against his supporters.

At the extreme end if an employee was fired for supporting literal Nazis would anybody kick up a fuss? Not likely.

I don't know if there is a National Socialist party in the USA, but if there was then I don't think anyone should be fired for supporting their political activities.

Of course, if a National Socialist party included a paramilitary wing which was carrying out violent attacks on political enemies, supporting them would no longer be a matter of supporting a political organization; it would be supporting a criminal organization, which is certainly not a constitutionally protected right.

First Amendment is a constitutionally protected right. It is perfectly legal to say something "all Jews should be gassed" at a public rally. Do you believe that such a speech should have no consequences whatsoever?

We're not talking about laws here, note. No-one is saying that we should jail those people or fine them. We're talking about private actions - ostracism, boycott, and other forms of (ironically) exercising one's individual freedom of speech and of association.

Of course not. We should absolutely hold Trump responsible for what he says. The disagreement here is whether we should hold Trump supporters responsible for what Trump says.

(And I'm not sure if saying "all Jews should be gassed" is legal; in Canada it would probably fall under hate speech laws on the basis of inciting violence, but the USA has stronger protection of free speech rights. Per Brandenburg, it may be that "all Jews should be gassed" would be legal but "we should beat up the Jews" wouldn't, in that the latter advocates more imminent violence.)

As for your main point; I think that saying that we're holding Trump supporters responsible for what he says is not really correct. We're holding them responsible for what they say by the act of supporting him and/or his platform.

And the platform is always a thing under consideration. Even someone who's supporting Trump because "Hillary is worse" is still making a relative comparison between his platform and hers, which is a political statement - and I don't see why they should get a pass on being responsible for that statement and its implications.

It all becomes a lot less ambiguous if you pick some specific thing instead of discussing it in abstract, and spell out all the consequences in full. Say, I know quite a few people who are going to vote for Trump for the sole reason that they consider him better on gun rights. But when you account for his "law & order" dogwhistling, and unpack it, what they're really saying then is, "my right to own a semi-automatic firearm is more important than this black dude's right to be treated with dignity by the police and the courts". Some people actually find it acceptable even when worded that way, but I'm not one of them.

The problem in Friedman's eyes is that this boycott reduces to collusion. And under collusion, the benfits of free market dry up: for example, in the free market you can shop your script, no matter who you are, and if your product is good, you could make a living out of it. When firms collude to establish acceptable political beleifs as a pre-condition to an economic exchange, you have reduced the economic freedom of everyone who is not wealthy enough to establish a movie studio for themselves. In effect, you have by-passed democracy ("one person, one vote") and moved to [benevolent] oligarchy ("one chairman, one vote"). As the old saying goes - you're freedom to swing your elbows ends where my nose begins, and so too with economic association. If you would starve a man until he renounced his political preferences - even if you deem them antithetical to the good of society - you're no better than Stalin.

National Socialist Order of America is perfectly legal, for example. But I don't think you'll find much sympathy for the notion that being a member of it should be socially acceptable, and that people should just respect your choices.

I have held that position for a while, but it became untenable due to the sheer number of outright awful positions that Trump espouses. It's no longer possible to say, "yeah, this one thing isn't nice, but there's still a net benefit".

At this point, there's no rational way to conclude that anything about Trump candidacy has a net benefit, unless you subscribe to some of his more abhorrent notions about religion, race etc - e.g. people of the "I'm not a racist, but there's something about blacks that makes them commit crimes and riot" persuasion, say. Or "I'm for freedom of religion, but Islam is a death cult". And so on.

So no. I don't buy into that whole "the call for genocide is mere hyperbole" thing. It would require such a manifest lapse of judgment to be realistic, that I would demand strong evidence of such in other matters to accept it.

I think there's a contradiction in PG's (and Sam Altman's) public attitude towards Trump and their attitude regarding Thiel.

I mean either Trump is beyond the pale, in which case they should not associate themselves with any of his supporters, or he is not, in which case they should cut the goddamn hyperbole.

http://truthinmedia.com/reality-check-trump-says-kill-terror...

He also advocates torture.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5775d740e4b04164640f6597

i don't know how to describe that other than he wants to 'dismantle US democracy'

For this to be true, there would have to be some non-political definition of "crimes against humanity".

On the contrary. Self-described Marxist regimes murdered over 100 million people in the last century (far more than the Nazis). So by your reasoning it's okay to fire anyone who's a Marxist?

Specific political ideologies that use Marxism as a philosophical basis for their platforms, like Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism and Maoism, are responsible for mass murder. And yes, I would consider it okay to privately discriminate against people who publicly espouse such ideology.

So it's sheer coincidence that it has led to starvation, slavery, and mass murder every time it's been implemented?

100 million dead bodies is enough to convince me that it's a bad idea.

I'm afraid that the burden of proof is on you at this point.

No. It's the consequence of the fact that all that have been implemented are offshoots of one particular political ideology, namely Marxism-Leninism. And that is the case because it was the only Marxist-inspired ideology that was brutal enough to prevail against attempts to suppress it - more liberal-minded Marxists that put more emphasis on democracy, such as the German Spartacus League, were violently suppressed.

After that initial period, practically every left-wing movement was quickly co-opted by Soviet Russia / USSR, if not created by them outright, and so it inherited the ideology. In some cases, viable alternatives were also violently suppressed by Soviet agents (as was the case with e.g. anarchists in Spain during the Civil War).

Stalinism, Maoism etc are all derivatives of that same system.

Socialism and Marxism are not synonymous, no matter how much you would like to pretend that's the case.

Edit: in my original post, I said that "self-described Marxist regimes murdered 100 million people".

Which of the social democracies you mentioned explicitly describes itself as Marxist?

And no, corporations are certainly not politically neutral agents, for better or for worse. In fact, I'd say they're among the most powerful players in shaping the future of the world.

Unions are a completely different aspect of employment.

At a union shop, a worker has no choice but to financially support the political agenda of the union, even if that agenda runs counter to the worker's best interest and/or ideals.

Exactly. The. Same.

Public sector unions take this further by creating a system in which management and labor are both operating under the union banner in a complete conflict of interest.

The whole situation is fucked and there is zero moral high ground in picking a side, much like our Presidential candidates.

telling a corporation to sanction, discipline, or fire a partner is not militant.

the only militant behavior is coming from Trump, when he talks about dropping HRC's security detail and seeing what happens.

diversity of opinion is important, but advocacy of violence and worse - the commission of sexual violence against women - is not.

I'm not certain that ending Thiele's partnership is warranted - I don't know enough about the facts. But this is more than just an "unpopular opinion".

But there is a point at which a candidate /is/ too extreme. All we're doing is having a discussion about where that point is.

Do you disagree that that point exists?

It's funny to see my comments laden with downvotes from (presumably) the people who wanted to respect diversity of opinion.

Or Johnson or Stein or Harambe, for that matter.

He's sort of an anarcho capitalist voluntaryist turned men's rights advocate who has some pretty extreme viewpoints, one of which is that if your family of origin doesn't agree with your beliefs you should completely detach and disengage from them. Stop all contact. I'm not saying I agree with it at all, but it was interesting to see the term used here.

Calling for the elimination of positions of those you disagree with is only going to make the world a more polar place.

We need more discussions and less calls for firing people or imprisoning them, from both sides.

I also wonder if DHH has the same thoughts if someone is a Hillary candidate.

He's expressed just about every bigoted position there is (against races, religions, and women). He's expressed just about every fascist position there is (jailing political opponent, killing/torturing innocents, shutting down press outlets). What would Donald have to do?

Also I'm not sure that "firing" is an accurate word here. Theil isn't really an employee is he?

https://storify.com/gkoberger/dhh-yc

    Paul Graham (@paulg) = former head of YC
    David Heinemeier Hansson (@dhh) = creator of basecamp/rails
    Sam Altman (@sama) = current head of YC
    Peter Thiel (@peterthiel) = part-time parter at YC, well-known investor, current Trump surrogate who just donated $1.25MM

   DHH: Although Thiel would already have been on a Performance Improvement Plan
   for his legal wars against the press. So easy move 

It's much easier to defend "we won't fire an employee for his beliefs", but it is also intellectually dishonest.

He is a part-time partner, which means he spends a small fraction of his time advising YC companies, but does not have equity in YC.

The broader point is that Thiel does not come home from a hard day's work at the bit mines, counting on the YC paycheck to get him through the next payday. He's your business partner, however construed.

If you're saying Sam should come out and say he disagrees with Thiel, he's already said he finds Trump repugnant. Are you saying that in addition to this, he also has to say, "I now draw attention to the fact that by opposing Trump, I am hereby disagreeing with my partner who supports him"? Why? And could it possibly also be because YC has other people in it, and disavowing a partner of YC by himself would be acting irresponsibly toward his partners?

If you're saying YC as an institution should disavow Thiel's actions, is every company expected to choose a political stance, then disavow any partners who act against it? For that matter, it's disingenuous of you to point to an individual's tweets denouncing Trump, then to the fact that his organization hasn't done the same, and call it a lack of moral courage.

It's also disingenuous to suggest, as you do in your tweets where you warn women and Muslims against joining YC, that because one of their partners donated to Trump and spoke at his convention, YC as an institution is now somehow poisoned with the views typical of a Trump supporter. Presumably Thiel was added as a partner for the simple reason that he is a valuable source of advice for startups. He can still be one as a keynote speaker for Trump. Besides, most people who endorse candidates, even people who act as keynote speakers, don't agree completely with their candidate, which further weakens your argument.

Finally, I sometimes read your tweets, and I noticed you tweeted https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/787756601281085440 to Paul Graham's wife. Your usual sense of humor becomes weirdly aggressive when you write about YC, like you really want to pick a fight. What's your problem with them?

For whatever reason, YC has chosen to stay silent while one of its partners pours resources into a candidacy outside the bounds of normal political discourse in the US. This silence is very weird, especially considering the individual partners' alarmist comments about Trump.

I don't think YC became poisoned with Thiel's views the moment he expressed them. They were poisoned by his views when they chose not to react in any way, and maintain their silence. I wonder what women, Muslims, veterans, etc. in this thread feel about the matter.

To the point that Thiel doesn't completely endorse his candidate, I believe that argument is substantially weakened by his 1.25M donation coming after multiple accusations of sexual assault. Clearly Thiel is comfy enough in his support to disregard this, and the parade of horrors that preceded it.

I accept that I may be starting to sound a bit nasty. I consider what is happening a display of spinelessness, and the arguments being marshaled in its defense disingenuous. It makes me angry.

> For that matter, it's disingenuous of you to point to an individual's tweets denouncing Trump, then to the fact that his organization hasn't done the same, and call it a lack of moral courage.

YC has multiple partners, and for them to disavow Thiel as a whole would require them to conspire, behind Thiel's back, to reach an agreement on this. That seems iffy. Is it really not enough that Sam has individually come out against Trump? Is it really moral incoherence that he hasn't rallied his entire organization behind him on this?

I do wonder whether female and Muslim YC founders ever receive advice from Thiel, and how they feel about it. But I suspect most accept that he's a smart guy, and that at the end of the day, they can part ways in disagreement but a few pieces of good advice richer. Or maybe not. I'd be interested in hearing about someone's experience here.

What I'm after is some kind of statement from Altman or Graham about Thiel, his involvement in supporting Trump, and their (presumable) discomfort at having such person be a partner in YC.

An acknowledgement of the situation, rather than the tacit silence we've had so far. What we have right now is Altman and Graham saying a Trump presidency would be disastrous, and not commenting at all about continuing to do business with one of Trump's key backers.

That's weird.

This is answering the wrong question. The point as I took it of idlewords' warning is rather, if you are a woman, or a Muslim, do you really want to work with a company where you might be expected to deal with Thiel as a consultant?

You say so yourself, as did sama and paulg: Thiel's role in YC is to advise startups who enter into the program.

Were I a woman, I would be uncomfortable taking money from YC on the contingency that I would have to do business with someone who believes that my gender being given the right to vote undermines the entirety of democracy.

Were I a Muslim or a Mexican, I would be uncomfortable taking money from an organization that might expect me to share business information with a man who has spent millions of his own money supporting a candidate who believes that people of my religion or race should be registered with the government and deported en masse.

Indeed, why should I, or anyone, want to do business with someone who hates them? Who sees them as subhuman? Or, since I'm sure you're about to rush to equivocate on this, at least actively campaigns for, delegates for, and finances, a political machine that does so?

idlewords' advice was, frankly, exactly right. If you are a Muslim, or a Mexican, or a woman, you should think very carefully about applying for YC, knowing that Peter Thiel is the kind of advisor you may be expected to cooperate with as a contingency of your funding.

Edit: Sam just posted https://twitter.com/sama/status/787794988855812096.

Do you think it should be clearer that YC violently disagrees with those views of the candidate your part time partner gives (some money he got from YC) to?

(Assuming YC as a business doesn't think Muslims and refugees and other immigrants should be kept out of the country.)

When you say that the distinction between "part time partner" and "partner" is an important one, can I also take you to mean that you would be reluctant to allow Thiel to extend his role in YC into full partnership, if he should want to do that in the future? At least, not while he continues to play the kind of role in American politics that he's playing today?

It also doesn't follow that a defense then could ever be "we won't fire..." He's not an employee nor a YC vote-carrier nor an equity holder that you seemingly can fire.

So, much like how he interacts with the Trump campaign, he provides capital in exchange for...?

[EDIT: To be more specific:

Here (https://blog.ycombinator.com/diversity-and-startups) you mention:

"My hope is that YC has enough leverage at this point to make it clear that [inappropriate behavior towards female founders] is unacceptable and we will not continue to work with investors who do it."

The whole post is great and speaks to the role you (meaning YC in general) feel it is important to play in supporting women, minority and more generally, 'outsider' founders. The quote illustrates you've not ruled out severing business ties to investors who make 'outsider' founders uncomfortable.

Here (http://blog.samaltman.com/trump), you are talking about Trump:

"Demagogic hate-mongers lead down terrible paths. It would be particularly embarrassing for us to fall for this[.]"

In the same piece about Trump, you reference Trump's policy regarding 'outsiders' in particular, and the famous quote, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." You also state "This would be a good time for us all—even Republicans, especially Republican politicians who previously endorsed Trump—to start speaking up."

The primary confusion is that, despite the fact "[you]’ve supported some Republicans in the past", you _aren't_ speaking up and clarifying the impact of a major Trump surrogate with a potentially misleading(?) title within YC itself.

So while some others are indicating you're engaged in pedantry, I am actually very interested in the exact role of various YC partner or partner-esque people. I think this is a case where details might matter, but so far YC has been oddly silent.

To the extent such a confusion can be averted, I'd be interested in your thoughts, but appreciate this can be quite a needle to thread.]

Are "part-time partners" employees?

Because if not your organisation is being judged on who you say are members of your team; part-time, equity supported or otherwise.

If the preceding barrage of sarcasm didn't make it clear enough, I'm quite disgusted with sama and Hacker News right now. Taking the high road like this is only possible when it's not your neck on the chopping block. Thiel thinks giving women the right to vote was a mistake; Trump thinks all Mexicans and Muslims are violent madmen who should be barred from entering the United States. Hacker News can gregariously see past these faults because they're not in the crosshairs, but if Shanley Kane were a YC partner and saying "all men support rape culture, even if indirectly", there's no friggin way this comment section would be so sanguine.

He's claimed not to actually think that [0]. Statistically, few women are Libertarians, and arguably, he was just referencing this point, which is apparently familiar to the Libertarian community, if not to the rest of us.

[0] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/05/01/peter-thiel/suffrage...

It is a dangerous precedent for left wing politics to adopt. What if right wing executives started calling for employees that support Hillary to be fired or publicly shaming them on Twitter? How it that any different?

My argument is not with Trump, because I am not voting for him and personally think he is an orangutan. My argument is with the utter hypocrisy of liberal activists.

[1] "Critics of Eich within Mozilla tweeted to gay activists that he had donated $1,000 to California Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California until 2013, when it was declared unconstitutional and marriages were allowed to resume. Eich stood by his decision to fund the campaign, but wrote on his blog that he was sorry for “causing pain” and pledged to promote equality at Mozilla. Gay activists created an online shaming campaign against Eich, with OkCupid declaring they would block access to the Firefox browser unless he stepped down."

Is that not exactly what happened here? OkCupid refused to do work with Mozilla based on Mozilla's (CEO's) beliefs, and this led to action on the part of Mozilla.

I'm not sure how you can call this a liberal action when it is essentially what the right espouses as 'the way things should be'.

When a CEO's freedom of speech damages their company economically, what are shareholders supposed to do? Bear the cost so that the CEO can express their views?

Edit: the Supreme Court judged that political contributions are a form of political speech. That is the reasoning behind striking down limitations to contribute. [1]

If you downvote, care to explain if you think I'm reading these decisions wrong, or do you disagree with the Supreme Court?

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/us/politics/supreme-court-...

Yes, along with the majority of the country.

A fair question, but Mozilla has no shareholders. It is a non-profit[0][1].

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation

That's funny, Mozilla is just getting worse and worse since he was forced to leave.

In fact the tenets of classic liberal principles is more or less congruent with the ideology of American conservatism[2] again as contrasted with "social" and related forms of conservatism[3].

The extremes of the "social" variants of liberal and conservative thought define the appearance of the virulent modern versions of "left" and "right" wing politically-polarized positions.

Worth pointing out that other dichotomies of Republican/Democrat, populist/globalist construction are context-dependent and frequently orthogonal to a stance within the classic conservative/liberal political spectrum.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_Sta... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism

Would it make news?

Freedom of thought and speech was what America was founded on, so they say.

I personally despise Trump, but I agree with Sam -- other people's political views don't really matter to me. Hopefully after this election ends, everyone can calm down and keep things in context. Business and politics are separate.

Edit: I see I'm being down voted but this tweet stream has about 4 different, intersecting contexts to deal with especially regarding people trying to pressure YC to drop their partnership with Peter and DHH saying he'd fire an employee for being a political surrogate for Trump.

But fine. Let's argue about one specific, tiny piece here and then we can do this all over again when Sam's post comes out.

Lots of people supporting each person and it's basically a political shit show after that with some people saying you can't fire someone just for their political beliefs and others say Trump is an edge cased monster that should be handled differently.

That was my understanding of it but I missed some of the beginning. There were also big names that I can't find now that seemed to be retweeting each one in support.

Seems messy.

But all that did was drive the holders of those ideas underground. I don't know of anyone who actually changed their ideas due to persecution.

Free expression in the marketplace of ideas is how to persuade people, not persecution.

http://blog.samaltman.com/trump

At some point, these are just empty words. It would be less galling if you weren't an alarmist about Trump.

Because that's liberalism. Separating concerns like this is the sort of thing that is fundamental to a liberal society.

Trump is a serious problem. He is fundamentally illiberal. But what sort of victory is it if we defeat Trump and give up on liberalism anyway? Yeah, that whole Enlightenment project, let's just toss that right out, because we need to do so to preserve the Enlightenment. Destroying the village is a wonderful way of saving it. Instead of rule by reactionary tyrants who determine what you can and can't say, we'll have rule by leftist tyrants who determine what you can and can't say! Such an improvement.

It does us no good to become the enemy in order to defeat it. And, what, are we to believe that this transformation is temporary? That oh sure maybe we'll fight dirty this time, but next time and in all the future times it will all be OK, liberal society will just come right back? No way. It is so much easier to destroy than to create. This sort of viciousness, of splitting everything into "us" and "them" and demanding that the "us" be in absolute control of everything... that's natural. That's human nature. To get people of different groups to live together without immediately going for each other's throats, to build the structures that allow that to occur, that takes work. We start down that road, we brush those supports aside, we're not coming back anytime soon.

And again -- the Trumpers are very, very, wrong, but if we use dirty tricks to go after them, all they'll see is that we're using dirty tricks to go after them. It's a mistake to think that our behavior doesn't influence theirs. If we break the "no firing people for political reasons" rule, then so will they. The eventual endpoint of all this is a split society where Democrats can only buy from Democrats and Republicans can only buy from Republicans... or maybe it's another 30-years war. I think "don't start another 30-years war" is a good rule. (Which is another reason not to vote Trump, because he'll try to go after the Muslims and the Mexicans, and then... but you know that already.)

In short, defeating Trump is important, but that's only part of what it's going to take to prevent a descent into illiberalism.

( Or maybe I'd be better off just linking to Scott Alexander: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-co... )

EDIT: Rereading, the final link is not actually appropriate in this case, given how much of a threat Donald Trump actually is. That said, I think my position is still basically correct due to the reasons I give in the grandchild comment.

Any sufficiently complicated HN argument contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden implementation of half of John Rawls. This is a perfect example.

It is not liberalism to stand idly by while an intolerant faction attempts to seize political power. We are required to tolerate intolerance only as long as it doesn't pose a threat to the safety of society. In a just society, even if we can agree on little else, we should all be able to agree on about equality of citizenship and equality of opportunity. Trump campaigns, actively and enthusiastically, against these principles. He is, according to Sam Wang's predictive models, within the "strike zone" of potentially being elected President.

Were Trump like David Duke from 10 years ago, we'd be required to tolerate him despite his obvious intolerance towards us. But he's not: he's captured the support of tens of millions of American voters, all of whom are themselves enthusiastically supporting a platform that would create a religious test for entrance to the US, the "liberalization" of libel laws that would allow Trump to sue the New York Times for printing the claims of his sexual assault victims, and the incarceration of his political opponent. You don't have to take my word for this: that's what Paul Graham and Sam Altman think about him as well.

Trump is a real, urgent threat to the fabric of our civil society. We are obligated not to be passive about him. Society has a right to defend itself.

Ideally, yes, we'd distinguish between the more object-level norms and the meta-level norms required to defend them. And then we would do exactly as you say. It would be very nice to be able to do that.

You're absolutely right that I've conflated these above. There is a reason I did that, and I should have been explicit about that, but it is certainly not correct in general to do so like I did above.

The reason I didn't distinguish these above is because the defense system only works if it clearly is just a temporary defense system, if people in general are clear on the distinction. We ought to be able to say, "Nope, sorry, you're fundamentally illiberal, so we're not required to play nice with you," turn the cannon on them, and have it generally understood what we're doing. It would be a big relief.

The actual political situation is that the water has been muddied substantially. A large portion of what was the liberal faction has been captured by the illiberal left. A large amount of the population was never liberal anyway and won't get the distinction. Lots of people have been going around saying that the thing that makes Trump fundamentally different is... any number of things that are not the key reason Trump needs to be stopped.

In such a case, where most people likely won't see this crucial distinction, attempting to invoke this defense system is likely to appear no different than just abandoning liberalism. And if we allow it to look like we are, well, everyone else will then take that as an excuse.

I would really like to fire that cannon. We ought to be able to fire that cannon. This is, as you say, the exact sort of situation it was meant for! But it looks to me like nobody ever bothered to tie it down properly.

(If Trump stood more of a chance of victory, it might even be worth it. As it is, I'm not seeing it.)

People are not here to have an impartial, rational discussion... unfortunately...

Seems a fair and legitimate question.

How it devolved into "at what point do you fire someone for their political activities?" is an interesting sidetrack; however, I think it's still ancillary to the original question.

  [1] https://twitter.com/dhh/status/787547255259758592

Thiel definitely wants to continue to have a fast track towards investing into high-growth YC startups, and YC doesn't want to damage that relationship.

This reminds me of Palmer Luckey getting "disappeared" by Facebook, which I didn't think was ethical. In a truly democratic society, taking a different (not to say, also completely mainstream) political stance shouldn't threaten one's livelihood.

I would not buy a Rift because there is no way on God's green earth that I would reward Palmer Luckey monetarily for supporting "shitposting" even if it was not directly related to the kinds of people (/pol/ dross and others) who have issued death and rape threats to people I know and care about. That is, in a way (a small way), "threatening his livelihood". I also don't buy video games made by EA because I think they are a company that has some real bad practices. That is, in a way (a small way), "threatening the livelihoods" of everybody who works there. We live as political beings, and that goes beyond what you say to what you do. Buying a USB sound card (which I just did a few moments ago) on Amazon is an expression of multiple political beliefs: that I am okay with large retailers over small ones in some situations, that I am okay with purchasing imported items, particularly from China, given the price of the item (i.e. I'm not willing to pay more than X% for "Made in the USA"). Probably a few others that I don't consciously recognize, at the moment. You can't opt out of being a political creature because you live in a goddamned polity. You can only take responsibility for how your actions impact others, and you can suffer the slings and arrows of what those others believe in return.

And there is nothing undemocratic about refusing to associate, monetarily or otherwise, with somebody you don't like. There is something undemocratic about attempting to levy laws saying that they can't participate in the political process. Conflating the private responses of private parties and the public actions of the government is at best misguided and at worst dishonest.

Voting? Sure, that's one thing, but buying a USB sound card from an American e-commerce site (which, I really had no reason to doubt you actually did a few moments ago in the first place...)?!

What's the politically aboveboard alternative here? Building your own DIY DAC from 'MURICAN-made Texas Instruments components (yeah, I'm sure they have a "morally cleansed" supply chain, too...)?

You're taking things to the extreme. Yes, a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane, but let's be realistic here.

Given that there is such a fine line between reductio ad absurdum and strawman, my position stated a bit more clearly:

Employees' political views shouldn't _completely jeopardize_ their livelihood in the form of causing them to lose their jobs.

"Conflating the private responses of private parties and the public actions of the government is at best misguided and at worst dishonest."

I'll give you that. It probably wasn't fair (even though, as they say, if it smells like a rat...) for me to assume recent actions taken by Facebook towards Palmer were a direct result of his public political activity/views.

EDIT: I can't resist casting judgment, but in this day and age of dire social problems like "climate change" and "black lives matter," I think it's telling that your idea of political activism is buying, of all things, a USB sound card.

Writing the manufacturer a letter questioning their practices would be activism, it is done with the intent to change the consequences. I guess you could also engage with the intent to prevent change.

When engaging in activism, the political consequence is the point.

You express your political beliefs--and your religious beliefs, and your philosophical beliefs--not just by your vote, but by your actions. Every day. It never stops. You can never, ever, ever opt out. These beliefs are your character, and your character is who you are in the dark. Either you do them, or you don't believe them. There's no middle ground. You can't have beliefs and then not practice them (to the best of your ability, with natural accommodations for factors that prevent you from practicing them--like, this is why I emphatically don't cast Oculus employees in a poor light for being unfortunately attached to that company, because most people can't up and quit a job at a moment's notice).

If the idea that "the practice of your beliefs is the having of them" is extreme, then we should all off ourselves and let the cockroaches have their shot. But it's not extreme. It's just uncomfortable to have it pointed out that you might not be practicing what you preach.

.

Moving on--I do think Facebook shoved Luckey in the basement for his political activity. They should. He makes the company look dirty. He makes people who work at Facebook feel less safe because he is making war on them (in the "politics is war by other means" sense of the word) for their ethnicity or their gender. I don't think that it's either incorrect nor pejorative to say that, if not for legal obligations, he probably would have been shitcanned immediately and it would have been for his political activity. And that's OK. When your politics are effectively existential threats towards people, "fuck you" is a pretty okay response. And that goes both ways. Bringing it back to a personal level: I destroy jobs because I'm a computer programmer and that's not a good thing for a lot of people. They can tell me to go fuck myself, they can choose not to interact with me. It's unlikely to have an impact, but they can. So it is up the chain, too.

"Free speech" comes with consequences. So it is, and so it must be, or "free speech" is one-way. (Which is really what most--not necessarily you, I'm not a mind reader, but most--people who advocate for tolerance towards conservative and, frankly, reactionary politics are really angling for: the freedom to do unto others.)

I'd like a serious answer to this, actually: why does this matter?

Google comes up with 400 results for it, and this is the first time it's used on HN.

Trump:Hitler::Thiel:?

When you write something like this:

In the words of Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." This would be a good time for us all—even Republicans, especially Republican politicians who previously endorsed Trump—to start speaking up.

And then do nothing, it just comes off as sanctimonious and hypocritical.

The reality is that it depends on the level of the person in the organization (as well as the organization itself, but that's not part of this argument). For example, if a janitor supports Donald Trump, that doesn't really affect the business because no one outside the organization thinks that the janitor is representative of the organization as a whole. However, if a C-level employee did something that's considered morally reprehensible, it can affect the business because people associate the business with the people that run it.

In this case, I don't agree that Thiel should be "fired" because people wouldn't immediately associate Thiel with the company and he doesn't "work" full time with them (he's a part time partner). If Sam Altman had come out in support of Trump with a donation that would be a different story.

My gut is one thing but when i actually write (type) it out I get surprised how I change my opinion.

I can't find a cspan interview where he was even more open about how the act of writing out opinions often makes one change your initial thoughts

[0] http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2661589&page=1

If YC continues to partner with Thiel, everything they say about promoting women in tech is bullshit.

Don't lie with dogs. Don't take money from Andreessen if you think Snowden was a hero. Don't continue to partner with Thiel after he continues to support Trump after revelations of sexual predation put to rest that any of this is just folksy bluntness. Trump is the most dangerous candidate I've ever seen. MSNBC has reported that he's contemplated the use of nuclear weapons against ISIS.

Continuing to prop up a billionaire that actively campaigns with Trump and continues to funnel money towards him is a grave mark against YC, and frankly surprising given how for most of YC's history they've prioritised helping first and money second.

This is just silly. For most people, even the most angelic, ideal political figure has done things and made decisions that people can credibly consider to be "evil". If someone from Code Pink told me that Hillary Clinton's consistent, unwarranted hawkishness meant that she had the blood of 100s of thousands on her hands and was irredeemable, I'm not convinced I could mount a credible defense of her actions (again, I think you could find such a decision for most politicians). The idea that I should fire every Hillary supporter because of this is beyond ridiculous (and it's hardly a slam-dunk case that hundreds of thousands dead in (e.g.) Iraq is a lesser sin that whatever Andreesen and Trump have done).

To be clear, I'm not endorsing the above point of view, but rather pointing out how doomed to collapse your model of the world is. Punishing people for supporting political figures who you think are irredeemable is disgusting, and it's insane to me that it's not immediately obvious to you that this is a weapon that can be pointed in every direction.

Hillary Clinton is not a dictator. Thiel is not an employee. I do treat people differently based on their actions and who they support and you should to. Putin didn't just walk up to the Kremlin and tell them he was going to seize power, he was able to do it because people let him, then he seized the press to complete his control over the information Russians have access to.

There is no universal agreement on how to categorize every action into "evil" or "not evil". Those of us who are capable of understanding society as being larger than our tiny little bubble are aware that there are people on the other side of each issue that feel just as strongly about their points. For every person who claims Trump is "clearly evil", you can find a person who claims Hillary is. These claims per se are worth approximately nothing, particularly when you expect other people to act based on your interpretation of what evil is. 60 years ago you'd find people openly stating that interracial marriage was evil; 100 years ago being insufficiently religious was evil. I find it extraordinarily childish when people take the position that they can fight dirty because they claim they have the moral high ground. News flash: _everyone thinks they're on the moral high ground_.

Look, I don't even like the guy, and from the beginning of the election season Clinton has had my vote, but this existential total-war approach to politics is disgusting.

> Hillary Clinton is not a dictator

When exactly were you imbued with the divine right to decide that 1) being "a dictator" is the only relevant factor for demanding that people divest from supporting a candidate and 2) Trump is a dictator (using a definition of "dictator" that literally nobody else in the universe uses)?

If someone claimed that Hillary Clinton was pro-rape and pro-rape-culture for attacking victims of sexual assault[1] and that justified demands that someone else cut ties with a Clinton-supporting "part-time partner" of their firm, I'd find it just as abhorrent.

Your bar for cutting ties with someone is that they support a political candidate that _you_ find evil (or more evil than the alternative). Given that your voice isn't worth anything more than anyone else in the country, this ends up reducing to "people are obligated to cut ties with any figure for whom at least one random dude thinks they're evil". I hope it's clear how nonsensical that is.

I'm not currently aware of things that Hillary said that would be considered independently reprehensible if my coworker said them, but if I missed it I'd like to hear it, but if such statements exist I would have no problem saying anyone who repeated such statements should be despised.

If someone says they support some weird tax plan, it also doesn't matter whether some mainstream candidate proposed it, that is simply never grounds for disciplinary action. If someone says that women simply don't belong in the board room, that is grounds for disciplinary regardless of which party candidate said it before you.

ps: I'm Canadian, I couldn't care less. In most provinces, both candidates would be considered center-right and hawkish war-mongers. edit: I do care, in terms of avoiding populism and war, but I'm not a strong Clinton advocate either. Just a concerned neighbour.

Personally, though, I think both candidates have their fair share of dirt. Here in California, we are pretty shielded from the other side. I've been home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (where pg is from) for the past month working remotely, and it has been a real eye-opener hearing the other side of the story.

Full disclosure: I'm voting for Hillary.

> "given how for most of YC's history they've prioritised helping first and money second"

Can you elaborate? Not that I disagree with you, but I am curious what your thoughts are.

> "Continuing to prop up a billionaire that actively campaigns with Trump and continues to funnel money towards him is a grave mark against YC"

I strongly disagree ("BUT {mainstream political candidate} is, represents, or supports X" isn't a valid rebuttal either, no matter what X is -- supporting said candidate should never justify an employer jeopardizing one's livelihood in a _truly_ democratic society; McCarthyism is a great analogy).

"But Bush threatens the survival of American democracy. Bush threatens world peace. This is not a normal politician. He channels what fascist dictators do: hate, fear, violence, a complete disconnection or disinterest in what the Truth actually is."

^ Does this ring a bell to you? It should.

No need for exaggerated inflammatory language.

Yes, I don't like Trump at all either, but just vote for Hillary like I am, instead of issuing an opinionated ad hominem attack. You're better than that. There's no reason to believe almost half of our fellow American population is behind a fascist dictator.

Trump is a difference of kind, not degree. He is an overt white supremacist and anti-Semite (and not in the "don't agree with Israel, AIPAC says you're an anti-Semite" fashion but the actual, "happy to imply that Jews secretly run the world" anti-Semite position). He has admitted to sexual assault on tape and tries to discredit those with claims against him by implying that the women in question are too ugly to assault. He is actively attempting to undermine trust in American elections by claiming that all of the polls are lying and that the only way he can lose is that the election is rigged. He is the venal id of the reactionary right and he is different from anything that came before. These are not things that have been done even by Republicans. They are not merely things that can be waved away with muddy gray-fallacy middle-ground thinking; that Trump's candidacy is credible in the face of the literal daily drop of another crime or another attempt to undermine the electoral system in which he is participating is an incipient threat to that system.

This is not a game of Internet gotcha-fallacy where victory goes to the first person who can quote a bit of Latin they don't understand, but it's not an "ad hominem attack" in the first place. It is a moral argument to character. People aren't saying that arguments made by to Trump or Trump's supporters are invalid because they're blisteringly incurious, profoundly ignorant, sexist, white-supremacist assholes, they're saying that Trump and Trump's supporters are abjectly terrifying and blisteringly unqualified to be anywhere near the levers of power to a degree heretofore unseen because they are blisteringly incurious, profoundly ignorant, sexist, white-supremacist assholes. What they are is why the argument is made.

Regardless, I'm not here to defend Trump (at risk of contradicting myself, I actually agree with everything you say about his character, even if they are "ad hominem" attacks); my position is still that someone shouldn't lose their job over supporting a mainstream political candidate; that is not Democratic, and reeks of infringing on one's First Amendment rights.

If we're in North Korea, yes, you should at the very least get fired (and also sentenced to hard labor) over your political views; but this is America.

The one aspect of diversity that the Valley needs to work on improving is tolerance of alternative (read: mainstream Republican Party) political views -- it has only gotten worse here over time.

I can't possibly see how anyone aware of these principles at stake can somehow feel justified in undermining them.

What I am saying only has become even slightly controversial as the reactionary right has lost power and the ability to exert their desired mores in society. Political activity earns political response, and if you want to make a case for the lack of ethics of such a thing I invite you to make it instead of just claim the end result.

In fact, there are laws:

California

The California Labor Code prohibits any employer policy: (1) limiting workers' participation in politics; (2) barring employees from becoming candidates for public office; (3) requiring workers to adhere to any particular political action/activity; or (4) "controlling or directing ... political activities or affiliations of employees." California law also prohibits adverse action against employees because of "lawful conduct occurring during nonworking hours away from the employer's premises." Given the apparent statutory/regulatory breadth of "political activity," California employers must be particularly careful in drafting policies.

(^ note: IANAL, and this is not a legal threat against ANYONE)

So it looks like the governing body of the State of California is in majority agreement with our position.

Politics is about designing how humans live together. Everything you do or say that somehow has an effect on another human being, whether it is direct or indirect, whether it changes or reaffirms the status quo is political.

Continueing to do business with Thiel is just as political as to stop doing business with him. To pretend otherwise only shows both how privileged and ignorant of politics you are.

Yes, and I'm not talking about "social politics" which pervade every social interaction (given we're still very much a tribal species); I'm talking about governing politics -- which political party someone belongs to, which candidate they support, which mainstream opinions they have, etc.

These social issues are mainly used around election time to polarize and to win voters:

Axelrod: Obama Misled Nation When He Opposed Gay Marriage In 2008 http://time.com/3702584/gay-marriage-axelrod-obama/

No matter who is elected, you're going to end up with the same social policies trending towards progress: pro-choice, legal gay marriage, legal marijuana, etc.

if Trump ends up in the White House (thankfully he most likely won't), it will look more or less like every other presidency. Trump's "Facism" (or whatever you want to call it) will end up effectively being the same thing (nothing) as Obama's "Change".

Remember, we have things like multiple branches of government, checks and balances, and the Constitution; we're not going to just devolve into Nazi Germany because Trump was elected President (contrary to any FUD). THAT is just crazy talk.

I've seen ads every year put out by opposing candidates asserting the demise of our society as we know it should said opposition get elected. Every year, it happens...

Doesn't having to base your argument on lies like this undermine it?

I have a Twitter stream of hundreds of developers from different backgrounds and it was like 99% pro-Hillary--by defending Trump you would get spanked. Something was really wrong there, and this conversation we are having proves it.

And I can't help but wonder if Thiel did this just so this conversation would spark. It simply is brilliant.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12721084 and marked it off-topic.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Donald_Trump_president...