"I don't see a moral obligation for anyone to serve in a Trump administration. But people who opposed Donald Trump, on both the left and right, should commit right now to one thing: We will not tar good people for joining the Trump administration. Their motives will not be questioned, and if things do turn out as some of his critics fear, the people in his foreign and domestic policy apparatus will not suffer guilt by association. It is just too important that Trump have good advisers.
Trump will be the least policy-savvy president in history. He has built no ideological framework for future policies, much less a set of detailed proposals. He has few advisers, in part because so many of the usual contenders have come out against him."
I don't think we can assume that just because somebody accepts a job working for the President necessarily means they necessarily condone the tone of his campaign or ever judged him to be a good choice for president. They can of course be judged on how they influence and shape policy proposals, and their participation in the process might well be much better or much worse than a principled boycott.
Peter Thiel is not somebody who has simply refused to rule himself out of serving, however. I do think we can judge people for donating large sums of money to the Trump election campaign and subsequently being appointed to a position of power, both because they signalled strong approval of Trump and his campaign with their wallet and because (like major donors appointed to high office in other administrations) they can readily be accused of paying for positions of power.
You can definitely judge him for supporting the campaign.
But do you judge him even more for pitching in after the election? As an admirer of Thiel and... the opposite of Trump, I find the whole thing confusing, but I'm definitely glad to have a sharp voice outside the Christie/Gingrich/Guiliani-axis involved.
Thiel is not some random rich fat cat who buys an ambassadorship. He's an extremely capable and accomplished man, and to me it looks like he's the one doing Trump a favor, not the other way around.
I realize reasonable people can differ on that part :)
We judge him for how and why he pitches in, bearing in mind that a Trump presidency is something he wanted to actualise rather than mitigate the effects of.
I don't doubt Thiel is capable and accomplished, but I also don't doubt he's ruthless, ambitious and tends to see things in black and white. It remains to be seen which of the ideas he's championed on he chooses to focuses his efforts on, of course, whether that's encouraging the government to support breakthrough research and entrepreneurship, slashing higher education funding and creating new tax shelters for the ultra rich, or just ensuring Palantir is well-positioned for contracts on new surveillance systems. Of course, reasonable people will still probably argue over what his contribution has been after he's made it. :)
We'll have considerably more information on how and why he's pitched in after he's actually done something with the foot he's got in the door. Which was literally the entire point of the post you're responding to...
Because I know Thiel. Not very well, but I've stood in the same private room with him and heard him lay out his vision for how government should operate.
I agree entirely with McArdle on this. At this point, I would be extremely reassured by an administration that is "wrong within normal parameters".
That's not what we're likely to get. We've gotten the following trial balloons for appointments:
* John Bolton or Newt Gingrich for State
* Larry Kudlow or Steven Mnuchin for Treasury
* Joe Arpaio for DHS
* Steve Bannon for Chief Of Staff
* Chris Christie or Rudy Giuliani for AG
I do not believe we should cheerlead the spectacular failure of a Trump administration. While I'd rather see Trump serve 4 years than 8, if massive infrastructure spending restores jobs to Ohio and Wisconsin and cements the Rust Belt vote for Trump in '20, so be it. I'm not a Republican, and I think much of Republican ideology is wrongheaded, but I also know the country needs to flip back and forth between the two parties, almost by design, and some of what the GOP does that sticks will be good, and the bad can be corrected.
But what we're looking at now is wrong beyond normal parameters. The suggested appointments I just listed are comically unqualified. One of those State appointments is ideologically opposed to the concept of diplomacy. Their DHS suggestion is (or was) about to be indicted for launching politically motivated bogus prosecutions against local politicians! The people of Maricopa County just tossed him out on his ass. One of those AG trial balloons would have, as a first order of business, the task of excusing himself from an upcoming felony prosecution. The other has made a name for himself in 2016 by loudly proclaiming his intent to lock up Trump's political opposition.
There is every reason to believe that a candidate famous for bragging about his vindictiveness and ability to retain a grudge, working with a party whose best and brightest almost uniformly refused to support him, will run a disastrous, counterproductive, dangerous administration.
I completely agree with McArdle. If Trump appoints Jaime Dimon to Treasury, I will be grateful and relieved. Not because I think the apotheosis of the Wall Street Elite belongs at the head of Treasury, but because at least it's a sign we're getting a normal GOP administration. I am not hopeful.
It's such an insane thing to have to hope for, but the best case scenario is that Trump is... George W. Bush. That he'll be impolite, but not undiplomatic. That he'll start one, maybe two wars, and keep them non-nuclear. That we'll see a declining market economy, not an authoritarian state. I oppose Paul Ryan on nearly every economic ideal, but I have to hope he pushes his agenda through, as opposed to... Alex Jones?
Most terrifying on the list is Steve Bannon. Rumor is that Trump likes him, and the only one close to him who doesn't is Ivanka. Probably because she's Jewish enough to fear the top adviser to the president being a white nationalist itching for the Day of the Rope.
The Democratic party did not have a right to the 2016 election. We knew the bench was thin coming into this cycle, and that the GOP bench was particularly strong. I do not mind that the administration is changing party hands. I mind it going to a febrile pumpkin. You know who else has this problem? Much of the Republican party.
People laughed when she warned about Russia, Hillary supposedly hit the "reset button" on the relationship, and then... Russia invaded and annexed Crimea.
Like Arpaio, another official who left office in disgrace (this time, resigning abruptly before she was even ousted), in a red state with a red local government, after costing taxpayers millions of dollars defending her unlawful abuses of power.
Arpaio, Gingrich, Palin --- these aren't serious Republican thinkers. They're people riding a GOP gravy train. Each chose to court publicity instead of doing their job, and each is being rewarded under the Reality TV Administration of Donald Trump.
>each is being rewarded under the Reality TV Administration of Donald Trump
None of these people as of this moment have been appointed to anything within the Trump administration, yet you say each is being rewarded. Either you know something the rest of us don't or you are peddling BS.
Yes. The transition team has floated his name. Another name is David Clarke, who thinks we should outlaw Black Lives Matter.
These are all trial balloons, of course. I hope they're just posturing, and that we're going to get people in the vein of John Ashcroft --- wrong (very wrong), but within normal parameters.
Meanwhile, those of us who elected him did so based largely on his policy promises, including immigration.
So if he wishes to appease his electorate, this better not be mere posturing, and he absolutely should select Arpaio, a man eminently qualified to preside over the operations of ICE and other DHS functions.
Joe Arpaio mismanaged his office, redirected tens of millions of dollars of funding from detention and infrastructure funds to patronage for his own employees, conducted politically motivated investigations into local political figures (including judges, the mayor, the Arizona AG, and the entire Maricopa County Board of Supervisors) --- much of this corroborated by an open letter from his deputy and second-in-command, who supported Arpaio's immigration positions but resigned in disgust over Arpaio's incompetence and malfeasance. It was also the finding of the US Attorney for Arizona.
Joe Arpaio was forced to pay a local resident $1.6MM for staging an assassination plot against himself.
You don't understand the complaint I'm making. I have a complaint that transcends policy. I disagree strongly with the immigration position Trump has taken. But I expected to disagree with the next administration, which was almost inevitably going to be Republican.
I can live with disagreement.
How can you live with this level of incompetence?
It's like the stupid Trump wall. Do you think I have some great moral problem with a border wall? Why would I? I have compassion for people who have lived in this country all their lives after having brought here as children, and would be upset to see them deported --- pointlessly, to no benefit for the US. But making it harder for people to come here unlawfully? Why would I care?
The problem with the wall isn't that it's immoral. It's that it's fucking idiotic. It's one of the largest land borders in the world, bracketed by two different maritime borders with the same country. It will be ludicrously expensive and solve virtually no problems, including unlawful immigration. It is an utterly incompetent policy solution to the problem it purports to solve, and yet here we go, ready to shovel an avalanche of money into the least useful most expensive public works project conceived of in the last 50 years.
He gave over $1M to Trump's campaign. If anything, he just paid his way into being a presidential advisor.
Sure, I may not know his exact motives for supporting Trump's campaign, or his motives for joining his administration, but if something stinks I'm not going to ignore it.
I'm done giving politicians the benefit of a doubt, because they always just disappoint me in the end.
Not when you are getting strong-armed by the likes of Putin. I can only imagine how Trumps "business-sense" will fail him upon entering Beijing, much like Bush and Clinton failed to keep their resounding statements of "strategic competitors" and "butchers of Beijing"[1] after arriving during their respective terms. Trump has even less foreign policy acumen than the other two and I can only imagine he will bow down to both Russian and Chinese demands. The manufacturing jobs he claims China has taken from the US have moved from China to cheaper nations like Bangladesh and Vietname [1].
Obama made a push to conserve the rapid "manifest destiny" of China into the pacific. I can only imagine how Trump will shirk at any sign of conflict, much like he failed to condem the well-documented wrongdoings of his most xenophobic supporters. We can only hope that good people with a foreign polic background will understand how unprepared Trump is for foreign policy relations and will volunteer their service for the betterment of the country.
[1]: WSJ November 10th, 2016 China's World: In Trump Win, China Hopes for U.S Retreat by Andrew Browne
> I can only imagine he will bow down to both Russian and Chinese demands
My worry is the opposite.
Trump's style is furious counter attack at the slightest provocation. That's obnoxious when you're a jerk billionaire. It's more serious when you control the deadliest military machine in history.
I still dont see why people refer to Trump as some negotiating savant. Time after time, its been shown that hes notoriously thin skinned and easy to rattle. During the 3rd debate he was not doing terrible until Hillary commented that he's only successful because daddy gave him money. Trump's inherent identity and belief that he was responsible for all of his own success being under attack in a public forum caused him to become apoplectic. You could see the anger rise, his face turned beet red, he saw red, wasn't thinking clearly and it was then that he went off the rails and his performance suffered. It was clear he had been rattled and veered far off message.
I imagine this is his personality. Whatever the case, it has been a constant since I became aware of him from Howard Stern during his playboy years in the 1980's. New Yorkers are well aware of this, his ego and his compulsive need to settle scores with reporters and others for any perceived slight whether imagined or real when he was a fixture of Page 6. Someone like Putin or anyone else with a poker face and on even footing could play him like a fiddle, alternating between awe/flattery and hurling passive aggressive insults.
Fair enough, he might be a hot head. Hopefully the Russians realize this and also realize we vastly outspend them, militarily.
I didn't vote for either of the two majority candidates but I'm excited to see what will happen. His first 100 days plan is all over the board, nothing has been seen like this before with such drastic changes. I don't know what the outcome will be if he does implement them all.
> Tons of people inherit a lot of money. Not everyone becomes Trump
Trump inherited his father's wealth AND his father's business.
I'd argue that other modern reality TV stars are more successful then he is. Paris Hilton never received an inheritance (hefty allowance not withstanding) and built her own business. Kim Kardashian inherited less than him and is on her way to becoming richer. Both built their own business empire, not inheriting daddy's.
An NPR politics podcast had mentioned that Trump always responds to the last statement from the other side, even if it's irrelevant to the rest of the statement. Clinton leveraged that during the debates.
I can imagine foreign diplomats quickly catching onto this and using it to their advantage in discussions.
Choosing not to build an ideological framework because you want to sort of wait and see what happens is different from not building one because you are too ignorant to do so. I'd agree with you that this is a positive thing if it was the former but I think it's pretty clear that it is in fact the latter.
I'd probably add "duplicitous" to "ignorant". Of course, there's also a tenable argument that absence of an ideological framework is an improvement on the ideological framework of some of the alternative candidates that could plausibly have won the election if he hadn't announced his candidacy.
But it says something about a president when the nicest thing you can say about most of their stated intentions is that they're a mountebank without the integrity or ability to actually follow through.
Thinking is impossible without ideology. You need some principles, otherwise you're just floating in empty space with no way to decide anything, because you couldn't even judge outcomes.
His ideology is mostly "might is right". That's actually quite convenient, because it sanctions any outcome. Grandmother robbed at night? Why did you leave the house? Grandmother killed at home? Shoulda worked harder – winners can afford better locks.
what is the point of this. When one says he doesn't have much of an ideology, they mean he's not operating with a battleship of ideology like Marxism. He's not running events through a historical realism filter (and throwing errors when reality doesn't compute.) He seems closer to situational ethics. He knows he cares more about what's close than what's far, he cares more about how things affect where he lives than judging things according to some universal standard. If he doesn't see evidence that something is tangibly good for people he's around, he questions its value. I can see why this confuses the hell out of people, look at how he answers hypothetical questions and what people do with the answers. I'm not even saying this is a good thing, just that all these WEIRD - Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich people have convinced themselves he's some kind of alien because he doesn't get his values from a pedigreed abstract universal code that must explore every corner of the universe's decision tree and be able to prove its philosophically consistent, or it's shit.
Trump is probably gonna fail, if you want to stick it to him hold him accountable by his own standard. At the end of his term, you look at America and say Did you do it, Donald? Where are the jobs? Are people happier and more secure? Do they have better health care? The answer is probably going to be no. There's no internally consistent excuse he could give to this that wouldn't entail his own failure, because results were what mattered. so the only thing he could possibly say, and we already know this is, we could've won but we were sabotaged. So get ready for it, but remember it's gonna be hard to argue against because people will have fought against him, and what's worse they will have fought against him _on principle_, yet again caring more about the "integrity" of the system than the people the system was supposed to protect. Even if he loses and it can clearly be chalked up to his own bungling, he'll be able to point that out and sufficiently mask his own failures because of it.
I mean, this is a really bad situation, same as the election itself was: if he wins, then well, he wins, maybe he'll accomplish some good, but it's gonna come with a lot of bad. If he loses, it's still a sufficient indictment of the system that his criticism still stands. You people don't even realize how fucked you are. He is America's Destroying Angel. By the time he arrives, it's already too late.
Ideological leaders (on the left and the right) were responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths in the 20th century, for a start.
More generally, no ideology can actually capture reality. While they all contain some truth, they are all also fundamentally untrue if you drill down far enough. I'd rather grade someone on results (human happiness) than adherence to an ideological framework. I don't mean this in a simple utilitarian sense, either.
I find ideologies in general a huge impediment to solving problems. It erects imaginary barriers around potential solutions. We can all agree that universal health care at an affordable price is a good thing. Whether that is by market based solutions or by single payer doesnt matter to me. Whatever is most efficient and provides the best health outcomes is what matters, not some belief based upon... faith
>> We will not tar good people for joining the Trump administration.
>> Their motives will not be questioned,
>> [They] will not suffer guilt by association.
Really? I'll do whatever the hell I want. It's perfectly reasonable to blame the enablers and question why they would associate with and help a person who has said and done such heinous things.
> "[...] But people who opposed Donald Trump, on both the left and right, should commit right now to one thing: We will not tar good people for joining the Trump administration."
I'm not one to demonize Trump, but I don't see why someone who does demonizes Trump should not extend this to his administrative team, especially since on a lot of topics, Trump is more liberal that a proper GOPer.
A huge issue today is the lack of calm, reasoned debate.
As a Trump supporter I have never been able to properly explain the rationale to a liberal. I believe there is a worthy debate beneath all the political smear, but it is never reached. I believe the reason for this is the liberal media and the incredibly effective Democratic party election machine.
The argument stays at the high level of "how could you vote for someone who said that", "he is a monster", etc. It is "I don't want to listen".
All you have to do to realise what is wrong with this is to ask yourself: "What happens if the situation is reversed and someone said they don't want to listen to me?". What if someone else started to restrict what I could say?
Thankfully, freedom of speech is such an integral part of the US, that there is not one side trying to control what the other can say, and the other doing the same back.
This is what makes the country work. The fact that both sides are not in the business of restricting free speech. This doesn't hold true in many other countries.
> Thankfully, freedom of speech is such an integral part of the US, that there is not one side trying to control what the other can say, and the other doing the same back.
Sure, you and Donald Trump can say whatever you please. Nobody's restricting your freedom of speech. However, what you say betrays who you are. And what Trump said showed he's a liar, misogynist, tech illiterate, arrogant and overall a disgusting human being.
> "What happens if the situation is reversed and someone said they don't want to listen to me?"
People listen up until the point you prove to them you're not worth listening to.
Sorry but your comment simply indicates the problem.
It's quite similar to the post-Brexit discussions, how pro-Bexit people are stupid, etc.
We can talk about what a "liar, misogynist, tech illiterate, arrogant and overall a disgusting human being" he is all we want. It would probably be fine, as in it wouldn't really matter, if he was some random radical weirdo with an audience of a dozen equally weird folks. But he's the President-elect.
So we can continue with this circle jerk rant about what a disgusting human being is and what his voters are like. Or we can try to actually understand why so many people voted for him. But in order to do that, we need to stop the whole rant that never changes.
I am not pro-Trump. In fact, my safety largely depends on NATO and Trump poses a threat. But there's no point in shouting about what a misogynist he is. It's so counterproductive.
> It's quite similar to the post-Brexit discussions, how pro-Bexit people are stupid, etc.
Except I didn't call voters stupid, I simply summarized what Trump said.
> We can talk about [...] It would probably be fine [...] But he's the President-elect.
Of course we can talk about it. We have freedom of speech (wasn't this the original point?). You mean to tell me he can say whatever he wants but I can't call him out because he's the president-elect?
I get it that everyone whats to prevent things from going worse but we shouldn't close our eyes or accept whatever Trump happens to say or do out of fear. He shouldn't be allowed to do whatever he wants because "we must be united". He should be called out and, if necessary held accountable.
Trump those things was definitely not acceptable. But we can't undo the election or ignore the results of it simply because we don't find it acceptable. A very large share of American population were happy enough to vote for him. This, Brexit, raise to popularity of some specific parties in Europe should be a huge wake up call. And if we keep the attitude of 'racists voted him! He's a liar!' then it's just the beginning.
We should be very worried about the prospect of nationalist parties in europe. Unlike the US, nationalism in europe is deadly, very deadly. We should have a frank discussion about immigration and define our red lines in order to weaken this wave.
I also think the shouting of "liar, misogynist, ..." -- that type of reaction by people, to call others names -- is a component of what led people to vote for Trump.
Racist and misogynist are very heavy terms, and once they are in the mix, there is no way a moderate is going to go near the discussion. It is like "you are racist, racists shouldn't be listened to, I will not listen to you".
There have been so many comments like this in this thread - even when the original comment is pointing this out. Sigh.
Its so great to learn something I did not think of during a discussion like this. Its exactly what its for.
And also share with you a special kind of bias you might be victim of: confirmation bias.
Also your quotes:
> Racist and misogynist are very heavy terms
> On misogyny - she (Clinton) has never attacked a woman's character before?
So, misogyny is a very heavy term, but you consider it's ok to attribute it to someone who simply attacks a woman's character (which actually has nothing to do with any definition of misogyny).
Also, if you need proof that those terms weren't used lightly, I urge you to read another of my comments [1] where I posted videos of Trump proving he deserves being called that.
> The argument stays at the high level of "how could you vote for someone who said that", "he is a monster", etc. It is "I don't want to listen".
>> And what Trump said showed he's a liar, misogynist, tech illiterate, arrogant and overall a disgusting human being.
And Clinton is not a liar, not a tech illiterate, not arrogant, and not disgusting human being? On misogyny - she has never attacked a woman's character before?
Bias, bias, bias, and bias.
> People listen up until the point you prove to them you're not worth listening to.
Do you believe you are rationale. Everyone is saying that you lost the election because you didn't listen. This has real consequences. ACA will be repealed. Etc. Etc.
And you still have the attitude of: "I don't want to listen". All I can say is thank you - because now it doesn't matter anymore.
You can argue that a lot of people (Democrats included) didn't want to vote for Clinton either. By that argument you're justifying both candidates' character flaws by saying "Well, you know the other person is just as bad as my choice, so that makes it OK".
I wasn't agreeing with the claims against Trump. I think they are wrong. I was commenting on the fact that you can find arguments for all those claims for Clinton. Which cancels out the argument - and requires each claim to be taken by itself without supporting evidence and reasoned arguments.
The libs got to use to not having to back up their claims through a confirmation bias from their echo chamber.
What I don't understand is that you're telling us how you feel bullied by the libs using generalities, and in doing that you're labeling me a "lib" and doing so in a way that comes across as talking down to me.
I'm not defending the behavior of Democratic Party supporters, but can you recognize the hypocrisy in your behavior just now?
Except they're a classic smokescreen - every time one is refuted (and they all are, through expensive pointless investigation) another is invented to fill airtime.
This is where I disagree. There are so many analagous examples for Clinton its not funny.
This election I really saw the "liberal media" that everyone always talks about. Clinton had such a history that it made it clear as day. "Super predators", Jewish slurs, all the emails, Hillary's treatment of women after Bill's affairs, etc, etc.
Look at the NYTimes front pages during the election.
If you have a choice of two, you must pick one. You have to weight up the options. choosing one doesn't automatically mean endorsing it as the post possible choice, but just the better of the given options.
No, you don't. Most democratic voting systems allow abstention for precisely this reason. In the UK you're allowed to 'spoil' your ballot paper so that it's deemed invalid.
If done properly then abstention is a perfectly valid alternative to not voting at all, because your vote means it's more difficult for the parties to obtain a majority. If you don't vote then (ideally) you have no effect on the numbers. Whether this is how the US system works, I don't know, hence the ideally.
because? Misogyny is literally HATRED of women, like, treating them really harsh. I dont think the democrats were convincing at that
> tech illiterate,
He seems to be handling twitter quite great
> arrogant
No doubt about that but sociopathy is a frequent characteristic of leaders
> and overall a disgusting human being
Disgust is visceral aversion, and can be very personal. Not an argument
Are you willing to negotiate any of your positions or are they set in stone? It seems the liberals went full hard-line mode, and ignored half of america.
> People listen up until the point you prove to them you're not worth listening to.
So basically , what the others say is garbage, deplorables, end of conversation. That's the point, swjs broke off the conversation with "you know what i m not arguing with you, you re a deplorable". Thats not how you convince people, you have to try harder.
disclosure: i m not american but watched the war of words from afar.
No, it's not. I won't quote dictionaries, you can look it up on wikipedia. You can also find compilations of all the offensive remarks he made regarding women.
> ALL politicians are to some extent.
True. Indeed, we're all liars. However, Trump seems to disregard the truth when it stands right next to him. Even in the face of irrefutable proof he doesn't back down. That's worse than lying.
> He seems to be handling twitter quite great
I wouldn't call handling twitter tech literacy, but he's taking an aggressive stance against Apple's privacy policy for example.
> Disgust is visceral aversion, and can be very personal. Not an argument
I kindly disagree. At some point so much garbage is piled up you can't help but sum it up in a very personal way: disgusting. Also, as a human being I can't help but have feelings. And I would argue they're a rational response to everything I witnessed this election.
Whatever the reason for the broadening of the definition (I would consider progress), it doesn't change the fact that people today use it with the definition it has today. Just like "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet", so would his attitude towards women by any other name would smell just as bad.
let's put trump aside. There are nuances in the way we talk which have been lost. People from both sides use extreme language willy-nilly like racist, sexist, fascist. These words are serious accusations not mild epithets. This creates a culture where middle ground does not exist, you are either with us or you're the enemy, which is madness. E.g. I don't like smokers, but i don't hate them.
The main lesson learned from Trump's campaign is that "rational" is far less important than "belief" and "story".
Here's what seems irrational from my perspective:
1. Bob votes to elect Mike Pence, who takes the position "Homosexuality is incompatible with military service" [mikepence.com]
2. Dan, who is homosexual and in the military and Facebook friends with Bob since they started hanging out in college, finds out Bob voted for Mike Pence.
3. Dan says to Bob, "Yo man, that's pretty bigoted of you to vote for that guy."
4. Bob says I'm not a bigot.
5. Bob doesn't empathize with Dan or understand that Dan is really just pissed Bob took away his ability to serve the country in the military by electing Mike Pence.
6. Dan doesn't understand or empathize with Bob that while Bob may or may not approve just one aspect of a politician but that believes Pence is better than 'x' and thus is also a bigot.
Given, Mike Pence has formally expressed that "Homosexuality is incompatible with military service" and signed into law legislation allowing businesses in Indiana to kick out gay customers when he was governor of Indiana.
Given, Mike Pence's party controls the Congress, Executive, and Legislative branches of government.
It follows it is likely harmful to homosexual people to elect Mike Pence. And the burden for explaining why that risk is okay falls on the people who vote for Pence and who don't want to be seen as racist, because it sure looks racist.
> It follows it is likely harmful to homosexual people to elect Mike Pence. And the burden for explaining why that risk is okay falls on the people who vote
If an establishment candidate like Hillary is seen as harmful to Bob, is there a burden on Dan to explain why the risk of voting for her is Ok?
I'm pretty sure if you said to someone that you were worried a vote for Clinton is a vote for war with Russia then that person would understand what you meant. A person might disagree with you, but a person is not going to worry you feel the way you do because of their skin color or religion.
People should ask themselves deeply why this happened and start researching. Because that would be a rational response, not "protesting" with destroying property.
I am saying what you just quoted is not always the case. To say "and they decide that based on emotions" is entirely unfounded. Plenty of people do, sure, but plenty do not.
As an aside, I should note that weighing ones' emotions in a decision is not an inherently irrational process.
My issue with Trump has never really been about his politics. I get that immigration and loss of manufacturing jobs due to globalization are serious concerns for a large swath of the American population. What I don't understand is how anyone could feel comfortable with him as commander in chief, or as the US's representative in the international community. Perhaps that's not what most people are concerned about, but foreign affairs is probably the area where the POTUS has the most impact. The election could have and should have been his in an absolute popular vote landslide, but that didn't happen because he kept blundering into so many unforced errors during his campaign - errors that anyone with a modicum of self restraint would have avoided.
> how anyone could feel comfortable with him as commander in chief
I understand what you are saying here. He struggles to speak eloquently, and does not have a statesman-like persona. He is no traditional president.
But look at the last 15 years of foreign policy from "statesmen". We had two wars, Obama missed seeing the rise of ISIS, Syria is a humanitarian nightmare, we had a huge financial crash, and terrorism is on the rise.
Trump opposed the war (was not a strong supporter before, and immediately after was certainly opposed to it).
No one likes him and he doesn't owe favours to anyone. The bankers, the lobbyists, the establishment. Everything that we would agree is wrong with the country.
And he did not run on a conservative platform of religion - which has nudged the entire Republican party to the left.
And he use to be a Democrat.
There will never be another candidate like him. But sadly no one can look past the ad-hominem character attacks.
> But look at the last 15 years of foreign policy from "statesmen". We had two wars, Obama missed seeing the rise of ISIS, Syria is a humanitarian nightmare, we had a huge financial crash, and terrorism is on the rise.
So is your argument that "statesmen" have failed to avoid crisis, therefore someone who is not a "statesman" will be able to better avoid crisis?
Would it be fair then to say that because doctors have failed to cure patients, that we should stop having doctors treat the sick? Or that because people with drivers licenses have crashed cars, that we should allow people without them to drive cars?
I don't think that this assertion strengthens an argument that voting for Trump is better than voting for any other candidate.
I would argue that someone who does not have experience in public office should not be considered a viable candidate for president of the United States, much as I believe that someone who has not driven a car before should not be considered to be a driver in the Indianapolis 500 race. I don't think it's "worth trying out" someone who has never practiced a surgery to do open heart surgery on me.
I believe that a certain level of experience and track record in governance is a reasonable, basic criteria for the highest elected office in the United States. An example would be a governorship, term in congress, or a term a state legislature, something that provides a record of voting on issues that I care about, for instance - or displays some kind of governance style. Trump fails to meet this criteria.
It sounds like you and I agree that Trump implies more uncertainty, the difference in our perspectives is that you are comfortable with the uncertainty and I am not.
Is that a fair characterization of our positions based on this limited conversation?
The analogy you present, Public office : no experience as a public official :: doctor :: no experience as a doctor
I don't find it very accurate.
It might be more accurate to say public executive : corporate executive :: public doctor : doctor with a private practice
There are plenty of real concerns that arise from the accurate version, enough that here is no need to impose an inaccurate analogy to spawn more concern than is already warranted. But the one you proposed conveniently overlooks the executive nature that is in common between Trump's previous roles and the role of a president. Much of the support for Trump has come from this notion that the polite "statesmen" of recent administrations have succeeded with manners and managing their public personas, but have failed as executives, and that the populace has suffered as a result of their executive failures. This was the driving rhetoric behind the Trump campaign. It was hatred, sure, but hatred for incompetence. And this is the criticism that the left failed to effectively address. It is the reason why they lost.
You can mask over mistakes by applying inaccurate analogies, but you won't win over your critics in doing so. In politics, that's what matters. This election cycle we found out just how much.
They can just surround themselves with people who know.
I think its good though. The longer you spend in politics, the more favours you owe people. Political capital. Don't you get excited at the prospect of a leader not beholden to any special interests at all?
> Is that a fair characterization of our positions based on this limited conversation?
In terms of risk/reward, I see higher risk and higher reward. You see higher risk and no change in reward.
I think it is a once in a lifetime opporuntity to have someone not beholden to special interests, and doesn't owe any favours.
> Don't you get excited at the prospect of a leader not beholden to any special interests at all?
On paper that does sound exciting, but it's not something that I want at any cost. In specific, I don't want it badly enough to elect Donald Trump as president.
I think this sums most of it up. People think things are getting worse and their lives very likely are, so why not try something different? It's the reason for most "unforeseen" results for ultrarightwing parties in Europe, I imagine. People want "someone who'll stir the pot".
I've never felt like that, but I can understand the sentiment, after hearing it so many times.
Here's an alternative way to think about "desperation" (not saying this is necessarily the right way).
We have a lot of people in this country who are struggling financially. Their choice of geographic location, education, and skills (things they choose) aren't lining up with the 2016 economy (which they didn't choose). They voted Republican.
We also have a lot of people who are struggling socially and financially. They were born Mexican, Muslim, or homosexual (things they are) and are scared because other people want to deport them, jail them, or kick them out of the military. They voted Democrat.
Now, the Democrats offered to work with the Republicans to give them more choices and options. The Republicans said, "No way. We're staying put and rolling the dice with your civil rights."
Is it fair that a lot of people might feel like their freedom got sold out this week?
> We also have a lot of people who are struggling socially and financially. They were born Mexican, Muslim, or homosexual (things they are) and are scared because other people want to deport them, jail them, or kick them out of the military. They voted Democrat.
They only need to be scared if they are Mexican and here illegally.
Everyone else is being needlessly scared by the media and DNC.
As a leftist living outside of America.
The thing is that some of us see these "statesmen" as the origin of the crisis.
As a leftist, I wouldn't want someone like Hillary's personal friend plunging my country into chaos and give power to a guy who would make Trump seem like Mother Theresa just because the people choose to elect an actual left wing candidate. I know this wasn't a relevant question to americans, not even to the "tolerant" and "progressive" Clinton supporters.
So yeah, personally, I could be wrong, but I'll take a bet that things could be different with the one that at least doesn't seem like a "statesman".
Hi prairiedogg,
Well this thread is basically nitpicking each other. Let me tell you one thing. If you are a citizen of USA, you could run for president and be one as long as you are win a majority in a majority of states. Now, if you are interested in politics you, like me, would be following political decisions from a variety of sources and try to analyze it(see if its truth and try to understand if its fair to the citizens and such). You don't have to necessarily be a traditional politician/statesman(sad thing is most traditional politicians only cares about themselves and is more interested in coming across as having done something. Ideally they would do nothing and just get credit for doing all the good).
My argument is you are as good as any statesman so long as you have a working brain. Be rational, have a willingness to find a solution for general problems faced by having conversation affected and actually do what is necessary to correct it. Make a level playing field for everyone so that everyone can actually live a good life instead of letting greed run amok. I do not like career politicians who are in politics just so in hopes of wielding power than to actually use it responsibly, but no, most "statesman" have no willings to study problems and find solutions, and pays a lobbyist to find a solution who has no incentives to come up with even a remotely correct solution. They do that because people are not paying much attention to what they do and they get away with it as injustices done to them would be mostly forgotten/drowned within a week in all the noise.
I disagree that this thread is "just nitpicking each other" - I think it's been both educational and civil. For instance, when masondixon learned that Reagan had a political career before his presidency, masondixon thanked dbmikus for pointing it out. It's hard to find that level of candor on an internet discussion board - and masondixon seemed to want a genuine dialog that was free of the ad-hominem attacks that he or she had apparently been experiencing on other sites.
In regards to your "argument", I don't find it convincing:
> My argument is you are as good as any statesman so long as you have a working brain.
I disagree. My brain works reasonably well, but I don't consider myself fit to fill the office of the presidency - for a wide variety of reasons. I have no understanding of large portions of the world or even of the United States itself. I don't know how economics works on a macro scale. Just as I would never hire a person whose brain worked well, but had never written a line of code to fill the most important engineering role in my company, I would never say that just because my brain worked well, that I would be a good statesman or a good choice for president of the United States.
What I meant by 'as long as you have a working brain' is that "you are competent as long as you are willing to do rational analysis on your own and come to conclusions". You are perfectly fit for the office of president so long as you are willing to learn. You do not have any inherent limitation. Even most of the economists do not know what they are talking about. Most mainstream economic theories are not even proven to to be correct. Its just like anyone willing enough to learn to code can eventually write beautiful and accurate code so long as they remain enthusiastic learners.
As a leftist living outside of America.
The thing is that some of us see these "statesmen" as the origin of the crisis.
As a leftist, I wouldn't want someone like Hillary's personal friend plunging my country into chaos and give power to a guy who would make Trump seem like Mother Theresa just because the people choose to elect an actual left wing candidate. I know this wasn't a relevant question to americans, not even to the "tolerant" and "progressive" Clinton supporters.
So yeah, personally, I could be wrong, but I'll take a bet with the one that at least doesn't seem like a statesman.
I was trying to summarize masondixon's stated points about the negative effect electing "statesmen" have had. masondixon listed:
- two wars
- Obama missed seeing the rise of ISIS
- Syria is a humanitarian nightmare
- we had a huge financial crash
- and terrorism is on the rise
I thought "crisis" could fairly characterize any one of these, but what I consider the substance of my response was what followed, when I asked masondixon to clarify his or her logical argument and extended it by analogy to other common points of public concern, like medicine and transportation safety.
I think you're correct to point out that "starting a war" and "avoiding crisis" are substantively different and accept (what I perceive to be) your criticism.
> But look at the last 15 years of foreign policy from "statesmen". We had two wars, Obama missed seeing the rise of ISIS, Syria is a humanitarian nightmare, we had a huge financial crash, and terrorism is on the rise.
There are factors in play here beyond the background of the US president; Global politics, foreign leaders, policies in other countries, civilian actions, etc. To say that the US president being a "statesman" caused all of those things is a massive leap in logic.
To an extent, I agree. And wouldn't it be great if people understood the President should have a much more limited role than they expect now? The Affordable Care Act being called "Obamacare" shows the way presidents establish all kinds of policy. He's put executive actions on immigration, power generation, and more.
If only pepole expected the Legislature to do that, then we wouldn't be in a position of worrying that Trump will undo almost every policy achievement of Obama's.
It will suck to go backwards in climate agreements.
Why not have a go here, I'd be interested to hear your rationale.
On a less important note, re the argument being at a level of "how could you vote for someone who said that". That may not be people refusing to engage with what you see as the important points, but them focusing on what they see as the most important points. That doesn't make it right but if it is the case you may do well to understand their point of view holds that someone with his behaviour and character can't be trusted with power, they may see everything else as somewhat irrelevant. If that is the case at least understanding it may help you frame the discussion with such people, and hopefully not dismiss their arguments as petty since they think they are the most important points.
Anyway, aside complete. Let's hear the rationale for being a Trump supporter, I would be genuinely interested to hear it even if I may ultimately disagree.
> they may see everything else as somewhat irrelevant
Yep. But this is what made everyone miss what was happening. It was an emotional response.
But in this case Clinton provided so many analogous examples, which were ignored, which is just plain bias. As bad as someone is you always have to ask: could the same be said as my candidate? And with Hillary is was a yes on everything.
It was always a question of "How could there be so many racists, sexists and xenophobes?". The answer was...there is not. It was the wrong question.
> Anyway, aside complete. Let's hear the rationale for being a Trump supporter, I would be genuinely interested to hear it even if I may ultimately disagree.
I've already posted it in a reply to this comment somewhere.
Mainly corruption - the ultimate poison of a democracy. Counter productive political correctness, money out of politics, bullying and irrational feminists, sjws, and blm supporters. If you don't agree with everything they say you are sexist, racist, misogynist.
> are you agreeing with _anything_ feminists are saying?
Nope. Women are well respected in society and now have more opportunities than men. There are many successful women, and women don't need a message from men saying that the system is rigged against them and they will not make it if they try.
When there are as many women taking computer science at university, and seeking work in the computer science industry, and the numbers don't reflect that, then its something we need to look at.
How can you say that when there are numerous examples of assault and discrimination? From the very obvious assaults by frat boys to the fact that if a couple wants to have a child the woman is the one who is forced to take a career hit. I don't buy the retort that a woman should choose whether she wants to pursue a career in corporate law or to have a child, that consideration never enters the picture for a man.
Just because we're no longer telling Sally that she's bad at math because she's a girl doesn't mean we're done.
You may consider yourself an egalitarian but you can't be blind to the wider state of things. Have you considered that you may have a similar blindspot for other types of discrimination?
> I don't buy the retort that a woman should choose whether she wants to pursue a career in corporate law or to have a child, that consideration never enters the picture for a man.
How do you change it though? This is simply a discussion for the couple to have.
> You may consider yourself an egalitarian but you can't be blind to the wider state of things. Have you considered that you may have a similar blindspot for other types of discrimination?
I am aware of it yes. I read a lot - but it comes across as overly-sensitive and I believe sensitivities are learned not innate. And a lot of people just want to pick a fight because they are angry.
The third-wave in your face blogging feminism is the wrong approach. It feels more like a way to gain power and influence than to actually make things better. It just drives discrimination underground.
Your claim that a rape accusation will utterly ruin a person's life, right after Trump has become president-elect, is staggeringly imperceptive given that he has been accused of rape not once but thrice and had rape charges in pre-trial stages during his campaign!
> Thankfully, freedom of speech is such an integral part of the US, that there is not one side trying to control what the other can say, and the other doing the same back.
Let's hope _other_ people's freedoms aren't being taken away thanks to your vote, though.
I also don't see why you would Trump will actually listen to you. Because he says so? You trust what he says?
I understand and will not debate that you feel like you haven't been heard by the American political system (I immediately take your word for it), but that just doesn't mean the alternative to staying on the same path isn't significantly worse. Or do you think your life couldn't be any worse? Worse is _also_ an alternative you may have voted for.
> Let's hope _other_ people's freedoms aren't being taken away thanks to your vote, though.
Such as?
> I also don't see why you would Trump will actually listen to you. Because he says so? You trust what he says?
I'm not talking about Trump listening. I'm talking about liberals listening to trump supporters trying to explain to them why they lost, and why they feel they are taking away freedom of speech.
> I understand and will not debate that you feel like you haven't been heard by the American political system (I immediately take your word for it), but that just doesn't mean the alternative to staying on the same path isn't significantly worse. Or do you think your life couldn't be any worse? Worse is _also_ an alternative you may have voted for.
The past 15 years have been a disaster. War, humanitarian crises, terrorism. I mean its always been a cruisy life for a white male software engineer though. But I just can't stand irrationality (as I perceive it), but more than anything the biggest risk is the attacks on freedom of speech through the liberal's bullying, public shaming, and ad-hominem attacks.
Well, I'm thinking mostly same sex marriage, maybe the freedom of religion (which seems to be OK for most, unless you're a muslim). Trump promises a conservative SCOTUS nomination, so everything that comes out of that as a side effect has a risk of people's rights being take away, mostly the progress made under the Obama administration
> I'm not talking about Trump listening. I'm talking about liberals listening to trump supporters trying to explain to them why they lost, and why they feel they are taking away freedom of speech.
OK screw people who want to take away your freedom of speech (but I admit that I don't know exactly what the problem you mention is, because I don't live in the US) but the point still stands as far as I'm concerned: I understand that you're pissed off, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to abuse the presidential elections, unless (of course you really agree with Trump's ideas, in which case I understand a vote for the man), obviously.
I seriously doubt it'll lead to any improvement for this group of people, which would certainly make me wonder what the _next_ elections would look like.
>The past 15 years have been a disaster. War, humanitarian crises, terrorism.
I'm confused. There's a large group of white males that feel left behind, and that's because of war, humanitarian crises and terrorism? Not things like a very high unemployment rate (it's <5%, doesn't seem very high?)
And if it's about war, humanitarian crises and terrorisme, you vote _Trump_, who has the tendency to throw oil on the fire, to fix that? How is this outcome REALLY going to make your life better? Do you honestly believe it will, and if so, how?
I mean, I hate irrationality as much as you do, but I'm still trying to understand the issue, and why exactly it's all Clinton's fault and how Trump is going to help?
(I mean, a possibly rich businessman is not really part of the angry group so I don't see how it makes sense that Trump would represent a group he treats poorly)
Trump: The Supreme Court has issued an opinion on this. Same-sex marriage is an issue that should have been decided by the states.
There are many LGBT supporters of Trump. Milo Yiannopolous is a hero amongst all Trump supporters, and he is gay. The world has moved on - Democrats just want something to be angry about.
> Freedom of religion
It is about terrorism and not about religion.
> He would "suspend immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe, or our allies."
His daughter runs his company. His sister is a US District Judge.
You have been sold such a story by the media and the campaign here.
> Trump promises a conservative SCOTUS nomination
So would any Republican, and by replacing Scalia, it will be the same situation as existed during the Obama years.
---
> I'm confused. There's a large group of white males that feel left behind, and that's because of war, humanitarian crises and terrorism?
You see what happened here. You just injected this narrative of "left behind" as the primary reason for the election loss. I never mentioned anything about being "left behind". Again, you are listening to the media rationalise what happened, and they are the ones who brainwashed you in the first place. This narrative means the liberals are not wrong, its just a bunch of people feeling left behind and angry - just an emotional response to the liberals righteous path. This is very frustrating - but the Trump victory is so sweet, because now we don't have to care if they still can't understand it - it will keep them out of power for even longer.
> you vote _Trump_, who has the tendency to throw oil on the fire, to fix that?
Trump is anti-war. Clinton is pro-war. She advocates intervention. Confrontation with Russia. Trump says: "wouldn't it be great if we got along with Russia?".
Ask Wikileaks, they are extremely anti-war and they will tell you that Clinton is the danger here.
> a possibly rich businessman
Your words are dripping in vitriol. A "possibly" rich businessman. You might not realise it but everything you say is straight from the narrative that the media and DNC sold. Next is bringing up that he had 4 bankruptcies. Or that he is out of touch because he received a 1MM loan - which anyone could have turned into a billion dollars. I don't mean to offend here or anything.
> but I'm still trying to understand the issue
The issue is that you live in a liberal echo chamber. It is social suicide to openly support Trump. Even if you wanted to support some of his ideas, it would put you at risk of losing friends. I certainly didn't openly support Trump. The silent vote was real.
We are called racist, but no one is racist. We are called xenophobic, but all we are asking for is that the laws are upheld.
There is a progressive movement in this country that is taking shape on college campuses and will become mainstream some day, and they do not believe in the constitution or the laws of the land.
Where we see borders between countries that should be secured, they do not want the borders at all.
Where freedom of speech is the inalienable right, they are pushing a socialist agenda where everyone is equal no matter what the realistic implications of that are, and whether freedom of speech is trampled.
I believe they are wrong because they think with their hearts and don't for see the consequences of their actions.
Okay, this is why people don't want to listen and debate you: you're living in a weird cartoon universe where "President Trump" isn't a sick joke.
Just to take one minor example: Milo Yiannopolous is a racist bully. That's literally the only thing most people who have heard about him know about him. "Milo Yiannopolous? Isn't he that racist bully who picked on the actress from the 'Ghostbusters' movie?"
You calling that "bro" a hero is a racist thing to do: congratulations you're being racist on the Internet.
"We are called racist, but no one is racist. We are called xenophobic, but all we are asking for is that the laws are upheld."
I can't comment for the States as I live in Europe... but 99% of the big vocal trump supporters at this side of the ocean are racist and xenophobic like there is no tomorrow. In this country the only political trump supporters are the ones that has historic ties with the nazi's. That the most vocal European Trump supporters at political sides are in most case from extreme right political parties is also very telling.
So yeah it could be that you aren't racist or xenophobic but his message also really speaks to racist all over the world and that is fact.
> but 99% of the big vocal trump supporters at this side of the ocean are racist and xenophobic like there is no tomorrow.
Are you sure about this. I mean I don't know. But anyone you ask it always goes: "These people are scary and are Nazis".
When I listen to Nigel Farage - I'm like - it seems reasonable - but then someone is like "let me educate you...blah blah blah".
If someone is saying someone is a Nazi, then you back the fuck away from what ever you were just thinking.
There will always be some of the crazies like this. But on both sides. I mean there will be full communists on the left. But the white-supremist kind of crazies are definitely the worst.
I think these topics are too taboo that no one goes near them. And again I would say that this election was decided in the no-mans-land of race and religious relations that no moderate dare touch for fear of being labelled a racist for going anywhere near it.
I live in "Europe" as well, and don't see that "99%"
> In this country the only political trump supporters are the ones that has historic ties with the nazi's
That all racists support trump is not the same as all trump supporters are racists. Can you provide more evidence that "the only political trump supporters" are racist? It's not "telling" if it not true.
No one is saying all Trump supporters are racists. We're just saying that at least the supporters participating in the KKK Trump victory parade are :-)
> No one is saying all Trump supporters are racists
> 99% of the big vocal trump supporters at this side of the ocean are racist and xenophobic like there is no tomorrow. In this country the only political trump supporters are the ones that has historic ties with the nazi's
So, not all, just 99% of the vocal ones. Or, in some country, all the ones with historical ties to the Nazis...
I don't understand why you've started throwing in words like "vitriol". See, I'm not an American, nor do I live there. I don't really watch American news, and what I say about Trump is based on his own words.
If this were about terrorism and not religion, he wouldn't want to close the border for muslims but for terrorists, I would presume?
Replacing Scalia with a less conservative judge would be a win for democrats but it's fair game to have a different opinion. For me, however, it is most certainly a reason not to like a Trump presidency (though it has absolutely zero influence on me personally, obviously).
Trump did support the Iraq-war, unless he was lying when he replied "Yeah I guess so" when he was asked the question. Furthermore, he proposed a war crime to solve terrorisme when he proposed to kill terrorist family members (again; in a phone interview) and engages in such anti-war speech as "We'll bomb the hell out of ISIS", which, I would say, is pretty much waging war (not that I think we should just let ISIS slide...). So I don't agree with the sentiment that he's anti-war. Hopefully he's only not pro-war, like Bush was.
I said "possibly rich businessman" -- which I cannot for the LIFE of me understand why you'd call those words "dripping in vitriol" -- because I personally find it very suspicious that on the one hand he boasts about how succesful and how rich he is, and on the other hand he keeps the evidence firmly hidden. You're free to not find that shady, obviously.
I'm sorry if you lost friends over your political preference; I would certainly not have been one of them, that I promise you. But I do think you're misreading me: I'm doing my very best to stay rational (indirectly at your own request) and polite, so it's really unnecessary to feel attacked or anything. You're very much _free_ to support Trump, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
> If this were about terrorism and not religion, he wouldn't want to close the border for muslims but for terrorists, I would presume?
Something like 98% of suicide bombings were by muslims this year. And he said that it should be closed until we can vet them properly.
Its a bad idea. And he refined it to muslims from countries with lots of terrorism.
I mean...if you were part of stoning a women to death in Saudi Arabia...should we welcome you with open arms? If you come from a country where homosexuality is punishable by death...I really don't get why liberals want to let these people in, and then go and protest for them.
If we are tougher at the border, then the ones who are here will live happier lives because people will stop suspecting them of being terrorists. Try talking to a liberal about an idea like that...no chance.
> Trump did support the Iraq-war, unless he was lying when he replied "Yeah I guess so" when he was asked the question.
Yes on Howard Stern. Far from a glowing endorsement. And he is on record against it just after it started.
> I said "possibly rich businessman" -- which I cannot for the LIFE of me understand why you'd call those words "dripping in vitriol" -- because I personally find it very suspicious that on the one hand he boasts about how succesful and how rich he is, and on the other hand he keeps the evidence firmly hidden. You're free to not find that shady, obviously.
Ok maybe I read it differently in my head. Its one of those things that is quite irrelevant, but the media deciding to push this narrative to discredit him. And if you only read an article in the news about it, its what you would think. When the story of Trumps fortune is incredibly long and complex and he has without question done incredibly well for himself.
> I'm sorry if you lost friends over your political preference;
It would not be worth losing friends over it - so I just nod my head and try to nudge them to a rationale position. Political preference is not what any of my friendships are based on. But I think for a lot of people, its becoming an integral part. Bonds forming at protests, etc.
> Something like 98% of suicide bombings were by muslims this year.
There have been 0 suicide bombings in the US this year. The last suicide bombing in the US was in 2005 (11 years ago), the perpetrator was not a muslim and he was the only person killed. He also had no terroristic background.
> If we are tougher at the border, then the ones who are here will live happier lives because people will stop suspecting them of being terrorists.
You should have never started suspecting them of being terrorists. Or do you suspect all young white men of being school shooters? That would be equally wrong.
> She has been under active investigation for almost the entire campaign
Noting that it has all been Republican-driven and hasn't yet found a single thing in decades. But it is definitely an excellent "poison the well" tactic.
Do you agree that (1) investigation is not the same as conviction, and (2) that repeating the phrase "crooked Hillary" ceaselessly is a marketing tactic designed to encourage a belief that Clinton is a criminal in order to undermine her legitimacy as a candidate?
> (1) investigation is not the same as conviction, and
No.
> (2) that repeating the phrase "crooked Hillary" ceaselessly is a marketing tactic
Yes.
> designed to encourage a belief that Clinton is a criminal
No, it brings to light the fact that she was under investigation and has many shady dealings in the past. It is to raise doubt. To be a criminal she must be convicted.
> in order to undermine her legitimacy as a candidate?
Partly. I think more so to raise doubts about what she would be like in power.
> but more than anything the biggest risk is the attacks on freedom of speech through the liberal's bullying, public shaming, and ad-hominem attacks.
The latter strikes me as something that is an essential part of free speech. How would you address 'bullying, public shaming, and ad-hominem attacks' without also attacking free speech in the process?
We would never try to ban any use of language. Its more like advice.
We say: "Stop calling everything racist and sexist that is not racist or sexist because you are missing the real underlying issues. We want everyone to be happy just like you do, but we think your method is flawed."
Then we win the election because you missed the point.
This is why you will find such exuberant Trump supporters. There are many tears of joy being shed on the Trump side because of this.
Muslims often say: "Stop calling all of us terrorists and stop saying Islam encourages terrorism because you are missing the real underlying issues. We want everyone to be happy just like you do, but we think your understanding of terrorism is flawed."
Can you recognize the parallel between your statement and the one I've paraphrased above?
"Then we win the election because you missed the point."
As in, ignore the message at your own peril, we don't have to care because we are content now.
But in the Muslim's case, the implications for us ignoring their message are more profiling, xenophobia, etc. Which is why I would argue they need to look internally to resolve the issues inside their communities.
> Our 2011 survey of Muslim Americans found that roughly half of U.S. Muslims (48%) say their own religious leaders have not done enough to speak out against Islamic extremists.
I don't think that's a good comparison. The vast majority of Muslims don't support terrorist organisations. That's why guilt by association, as pushed by people like Trump, is so harmful here.
We agree that the vast majority over Muslims are not terrorists.
But the guilt by association is my point.
In this election, people who voted for Trump considered his Muslim ban policy acceptable enough that they didn't make him change it before they elected him. And guilt by association can cause that support to be interpreted as racist.
Chris, yes his ban is racist. And, if you feel it isn't racist then let's just agree it is unconstitutional. The Constitution makes it very clear that people can't be singled out because of religion. So, at best, he's eroding the foundations of our democracy with the Muslim ban.
Edit: Islam isn't a race, so there's probably a better word than racist in this case. But the point remains.
If you are gay, it is rationale to support a full ban on Muslims. Muslim countries have some terrible laws. I personally don't want anyone involved in an honour killing to set foot in the country. This is a real danger.
It is the height of irony that the liberals who protect Muslims so much, do not care what their views are on gays, or women. I don't get it and I would love someone to explain it to me.
> people who voted for Trump considered his Muslim ban policy acceptable enough that they didn't make him change it before they elected him. And guilt by association can cause that support to be interpreted as racist
Any time I've seen a Muslim actually talk about the issue, and explain how Islam doesn't encourage terrorism, they are evasive, or outright deceptive. Show me a legitimate attempt to explain the "real underlying issues" that is neither of these things (and not just representative of a fringe group e.g heavily westernized Muslims).
So you conclude that Islam encourages terrorism because, when you accuse someone of being a terrorist, they don't respond openly and enthusiastically? You've decided that a religion is guilty and want individuals to show proof of innocence?
> Muslims often say: "Stop calling all of us terrorists and stop saying Islam encourages terrorism because you are missing the real underlying issues. We want everyone to be happy just like you do, but we think your understanding of terrorism is flawed."
So this is the context I am responding to, the hypothetical situation of a Muslim claiming the above.
> because, when you accuse someone of being a terrorist
No, I'm responding specifically to the "stop saying Islam encourages terrorism" part. When I say "Any time I've seen a Muslim actually talk about the issue, and explain how Islam doesn't encourage terrorism", I don't mean in the context of responding to an accusation of being a terrorist.
> You've decided that a religion is guilty and want individuals to show proof of innocence?
What have I decided about the religion? I implied that if it's true that Muslims are saying "you are missing the real underlying issues", then I've yet to see one attempt to explain.
Also, If I had decided that a religion is guilty, who else but individuals could demonstrate otherwise? Religion has no life of it's own, it exists only in the medium of the individuals who decide to carry it.
I didn't think that you personally were accusing people. I hope I didn't give that impression. I probably could have written "we" instead of "you."
Someone trying to explain how Islam doesn't encourage terrorism is on the defensive. The accusation has already been made. But the accusation doesn't make sense if the religion has no life of its own and exists only in the medium of individuals.
It's tough to defend against an accusation that doesn't make sense. If we can't point out what is bad, what is there to defend? The whole thing has a guilty-until-proven-innocent feeling to it. If the prosecutor can't make a sound case, there should be no need for a defense in the first place.
Anecdotally, the people I know who claim that Islam encourages terrorism don't know much about it. What they do know is shallow and cherry-picked, and any decent explanation immediately goes into the "it's different, so it's bad" bucket. It must be very difficult to demonstrate anything to these people.
First, inanimate objects can still be influential. Comics books, for instance, where one claimed to encourage violence, anti-social behaviour.
Second, The religion lives in those other individuals, much like any thought, meme, or ideology. Even the inanimate influences are often created by such individuals.
In the case of Islam, there are some fairly authoritative objects and people.
Are you suggesting there is no such thing as religion? Islam seems to be pretty serious about standardisation.
> The whole thing has a guilty-until-proven-innocent feeling to it
Not to me.
> Anecdotally..
In context, I can't really see these anecdotes as in good faith...
Would you be willing to articulate your argument for Trump here? I promise not to argue against you, and certainly not to slur you. Can't speak for anyone else, though.
We now HAVE Trump coming in as US president, so frankly I'd welcome a bit of hope that he might be good. I can't promise to agree with you, but I'm very willing to listen to arguments from those who hold opposing positions to mine.
> I promise not to argue against you, and certainly not to slur you.
Please argue! And thank you for not slurring :)
> Would you be willing to articulate your argument for Trump here?
I supported Obama. I always considered myself a liberal. I support gay marriage, I support gun control. I support universal health care. I support decent welfare and a safety net.
As a programmer, the formative moment for my Trump support came when a prolific open-source developer was forced to leave the community because he would not accept a trivial change to the documentation to change gendered pro-nouns to non-gendered pro-nouns. His reason was he didn't want to mess up the revision history with a trivial change like that. And he was from South America where nouns are all gendered anyway. But one of the big companies came out and said that "they would have fired him". http://www.dailydot.com/news/github-gendered-pronoun-debate/
This was non-sensical to me, and was bullying. But I soon realised that this overly sensitive behaviour had pervaded all walks of life and all aspects of society and I soon discovered the cliched political correctness run wild with third-wave feminist bloggers, social justice, Black Lives Matter protesting of clearly non-racially motivated attacks, and that was it.
Its ironic that my biggest reason for voting Trump is to stop the bullying from the left - who are protesting against...bullying (sexism, misogyny, racism).
One side is for freedom of speech, the other side is for controlling what you can say.
One side thinks controlling what you can say will be abused and unfairly target people, the other side thinks that freedom of speech is a means of control by the entitled.
There's a calm, complex, and nuanced debate to be had here to find a middle ground.
But unfortunately there is no Liberal ready to accept that this is the debate that needs to be had.
The alt-right, the new right, the Trump supporters - we are ready and waiting to have this debate...
I think you're right about the need for debate around how identity politics can be better expressed and that is a debate that seems to have been slightly suppressed on the left. I would say two things about why I don't think this is a good reason to support Trump:
1. The situation you describe is fundamentally about freedom of speech vs the right not be be offended. Trump is not an advocate of freedom of speech and doesn't believe in a free press. In my estimation this is much more dangerous than what you describe.
2. This doesn't even register on my scale of the pros and cons of Trump. The Presidency is not about who decides who gets to say what to whom, that is a matter for society at large. As has been described elsewhere in this thread the damage he will do (if he enacts even half of his platform) to immigrant and womens rights, America's standing in the world and free trade will outweigh a hundredfold any small gains you get from a backlash against political correctness.
> As has been described elsewhere in this thread the damage he will do (if he enacts even half of his platform) to immigrant and womens rights, America's standing in the world and free trade will outweigh a hundredfold any small gains you get from a backlash against political correctness.
But in four years will you admit you're wrong if it doesn't turn out to be the case?
No. It will go on and on and on.
I feel I respond to all this fear mongering constantly:
> immigrant rights
Immigrants are better off with stronger borders. People don't have to suspect them of being illegal. Has that occurred to anyone on the left?
> womens rights?
Trump: I oppose the use of government funds to pay for abortion.
A supreme court judge may be an issue though, but it is unlikely to reverse policy.
> America's standing in the world
It is bad at the moment.
> free trade
Both candidates oppose TPP. Canada wants to talk about NAFTA. Free trade destroys local jobs.
I disagree that it's fear mongering and I don't think it's helpful to reasonable debate to call it that. I'm trying to understand what Trump wants to do by looking at what he has said.
On immigrant rights, maybe you're right, maybe all Trump wants to do is secure the borders but he certainly hasn't done much to discourage the nasty parts of his base form thinking otherwise.
On abortion rights you're taking a massive gamble with a hard won and important right. If you're comfortable doing that in the name of marginal free speak then that's for you to decide. I'm not.
The perception of Obama abroad is pretty good still. I live in the UK so I can tell you that he's perceived as one of the few grown ups on the world political stage.
They both may be opposing TPP but only Trump was talking about putting a large tariff on Chinese steel. Irrespective of the issues with global trade, trade wars are definitely bad for everyone involved.
I'm talking to OP's specific point around siding with Trump. I think the point is that no body on my side understands what matters in terms of motivating the electorate.
You've hit the nail on the head. Liberalism has spent the last 10 years being the language and thought police. Where is the liberalism that brought us social security and desegregation? Why isn't liberalism talking about and fighting for basic income? None of that, just "use phrases and words as I want you to".
I am reminded of a common quip, which I am going to modify:
First they came for the word nigger, and I stopped using it because it was hurtful to black people. Then they came for the word faggot and I stopped using it because it was hurtful to gay people. Then they came for the word retarded and I stopped using it because it was hurtful to disabled people. Then they came after the words he and she, and I was called a bigot, racist, xenophobe for not bending my knee to "they".
Its such a waste of energy. There are real problems and its such a diversion. I think its social justice bikeshedding. Its easy and they think they are making a difference.
There isn't any contact info, your account is green (meaning shiny new) so this comment isn't related to your thread.
However I just wanted to compliment you on your seemingly boundless reserves of patience while still taking the time to respond to questions.
I've personally taken a silent stance on everything until I know enough to have a good discussion about things. It has been refreshing to read a perspective, your's, which I don't ever remember seeing before the vote.
Honestly, there is no way I would ever publicly say any of the things I have commented here for fear of retribution. Going anywhere near topics like racism, sexism, and xenophobia is outright scary in today's political landscape - especially in the tech world. Imagine living in a world where what you say could lose you friends, your reputation, your job, etc. The attacks on Thiel epitomise this. The US feels as polarised as ever.
I believe the silent Trump vote was very, very real. There is a huge response to the progressive movement that flies under the radar. All you have to do is venture into https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/ and watch Milo's college tour on YouTube and you will get a good sense of the silent Trump vote.
We are now unable to discuss certain topics because the many of the words of language necessary to communicate on the topics are considered offensive. Communicating properly via talking is hard in the sense of transferring the exact same thought on my mind into your mind without loosing the context in which that thought is valid. It takes many to and fro clarification from both parties that are trying to communicate. If you add getting offended to anything, then the process of communication looses almost all of the original signal. I came across Milo's videos a week or two before election. It was in some article that reports it as being rude and offensive, so I went and watched the video. People are getting offended just because he support Trump. The reporter trying to interview him was trying their best to get him to admit what he says is wrong but could not. He stood his ground. Milo is also a human, he could get somethings wrong like all people, but he is genuinely trying to correct the problem of oversensitivity.
I was tracking both candidate's campaign and I couldn't even remotely say the results of polls published by media was correct. They all said Hillary leads. All most all traditional media channels and news papers all said Hillary leads. I live in a different country and even the media here were having occasional articles saying Hillary is leading. Each time I say in my mind "No its not true". I cannot blame the media in my country as they get the information from media in USA. Only in quora did I see someone almost accurately predict what the outcome of election will look like.
The woman being interviewed in CNN describes many of the problems. But the CNN anchor is not interested in getting into any details on any topic. Its like the media has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and jumps from one topic to another within seconds and does a poor job being a news channel.
So you were worried that the repercussions for saying whatever you like may be too high, and in exchange you were willing to potentially sacrifice women's rights, minorities rights, lgbt+ rights, the environment, business regulations, and whatever else conservative Trump appointments might do?
If only the third-wave feminist bloggers, social justice warriors, black lives matters activists, etc, had kept their mouths shut! It's good they were shown there are repercussions to saying whatever you like.
> you were willing to potentially sacrifice women's rights, minorities rights, lgbt+ rights, the environment, business regulations, and whatever else conservative Trump appointments might do?
You see how here you are saying that I am in favour of sacrificing womens, minorities, lgbt, etc. rights.
You see how it is basically saying: You are are a sexist, misogynist, racist?
Why don't you ask me what I think about those issues? Why don't you ask me my views on how they are best improved, and how the current approach is bad? Why don't we have a debate on the effects of introducing female quotas in workplaces. Why don't we have a debate on illegal immigration?
You know why? Because before we start talking about illegal immigration, you will be calling me a "xenophobe" for not using the correct terminology of "undocumented immigrant" or something like that. Its tiring. But I'm always up for it.
> If only the third-wave feminist bloggers, social justice warriors, black lives matters activists, etc, had kept their mouths shut! It's good they were shown there are repercussions to saying whatever you like.
Sadly its true. If you reach too far, and attack everyone who doesn't hold your viewpoint, there are repercussions.
If people don't agree with your approach, you make an argument about why it will result in a better society. You don't label people sexist and racist, and not worth speaking to. Its childish. And this election was a referendum on this.
You have to make logical arguments and engage in debate. Your ideas have to be able to be challenged.
> Why don't you ask me what I think about those issues?
You didn't vote for your views, you voted for Trump. You had to believe that whatever would result from a Trump election was at least balanced by your desire to show the left the consequences of their free speech, yes?
> balanced by your desire to show the left the consequences of their free speech
There is no vengefulness here. We just wanted to be able to debate freely and openly without ad-hominem attacks all the time. Because we think that it is bad for the country.
If your freedom of speech is about shutting down the discussion by shaming people, then we will not reach a middle ground. So now we took complete power.
There are liberal policies I like, but now you get a mix of Republican policies I might not like.
The left polarised the country. The right is just trying to get by and talk about things.
> Why don't we have a debate on illegal immigration?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but while you personally may want to have a debate about illegal immigration, the person who you support to represent you (Trump) does not want to debate. He just wants to make a sweeping change without anyone in his path.
Wow, this escalated quickly. Where did I call everyone a xenophobe? I thought we were going to have some rational discourse and you quickly resorted to name calling and finger pointing. Thanks.
> You see how it is basically saying: You are are a sexist, misogynist, racist?
Oh cry me a river. It's starting to look like your only debating tactic is "stop oppressing me".
You said it yourself that you voted for quoting "a racist, sexist, misogynist, xenophobe" because "One side is for freedom of speech, the other side is for controlling what you can say."
How is floodyberrys post not a fair representation of your views?
It does seem like that alt-right has basically appropriated the anti-oppression-speech of feminists and other civil liberty advocates, to construct the appearance of a minority of oppressed white men. It's a very frustrating process to see, and it's even more frustrating to have to tip-toe around white males who victimize themselves, as if they are actual minorities with long histories of oppression, like females, black people, LGBT-folks, latinos, or Muslims in America.
They've also appropriated the 'there is no absolute' truth idea, that is used to try to make people understand differing perceptions. It was used to try get people to accept different view points, basically something that liberals and hippies came up with in the 60s. Now it's been appropriate to further the post-truth politics. If there is no truth, why not always lie.
The real frustrating part is that this conflict was totally unnecessary. Yes listening to feminists and black people can sometimes by hard to white males, it sometimes appears unfair and as if they want to 'reverse' the world. But overall, that's not the aim of these movements. And we (the white males) should really just give them the benefit of the doubt. We should listen. It hurts, but the conflict hurts them more.
Instead, some of the people in a traditional position of privilege have successfully turned around the conversation, into "no, you should listen to us".
And now this group of people, many of whom were traditionally democrats (even may have voted for Obama), now voted for Trump. They are the swing vote.
I cannot stand irrationality. I don't care who you are, what you look like, all we have is logic and reasoning.
I am not going to give someone the benefit of the doubt. If it doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense.
It is irrational because it caused them to lose control of the government.
This is the tough love approach and will help them become stronger in the future.
I don't think you realise how rare it is to find any kind of spokesperson for these groups who can make a good argument and debate someone else without resorting to calling someone a racist, sexist, etc. and deeming them not worthy of speaking to. They will grow up during the Trump years.
The liberals only offer short-term comfort, that will hurt them in the long run.
You do realize that people are falling over backwards to be polite to you. People are listening to you because out of intellectual curiosity, because they want to better understand the delusions of the alt-right.
You sound like some sort of misguided 'red pill' type person who lives in a strange parallel phantasy world where privilege doesn't exist and where racism and sexism are just words used in 'name-calling'. Your patronizing 'tough love' argument is straight out of something like Uncle Tom's Cabin. You're hiding your overt sexism behind 'rationality'. You're denouncing the anger of the less privileged but are smug and unforgiving in considering their problems. You severely lack empathy. You are truly part of the problem.
I care more about the less privileged than you do. You satisfy your own selfish desires thinking its empathy.
You couldn't even make it through this comment without calling me sexist, and stating that you shouldn't have to listen to me, without making any arguments.
Thank you for your ignorance, you are only hurting yourself.
The key to rational thought is not just logic and reasoning, because both rely on axioms and information. You need to make sure you're getting the correct data and proceeding from sound foundations. Thats where the skepticism comes in -- double and triple check your sources.
I'm going to be straight here -- what are your sources?
I mean try not to take this too defensively, but you pegged Reagan as a political outsider when arguing for trump. You think an investigation is the same as a conviction. You think that political correctness is the substantive issue difference between HRC and Trump. None of these things are true. In fact, they are so obviously not true that I have to wonder about your rationality.
> One side is for freedom of speech, the other side is for controlling what you can say.
There was just one candidate in this election that wants to control what you can say. And it wasn't Hillary.
“We’re going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace, or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.”
> This was non-sensical to me, and was bullying.
I agree that it was bullying and that it shouldn't happen. But again, one side wants to fight against online bullying and the other side thrives on it. Just check the Trump's twitter account if you want to see what bullying looks like.
On one side you're saying you're all for free speech, on the other hand you're against the people exercising the right. Especially people you don't agree with (like Black Lives Matter). This all just sounds like a front to silence people who are pushing society in direction you don't want it to go (social justice things like fighting racism, sexism, homophobia, ...).
> There was just one candidate in this election that wants to control what you can say. And it wasn't Hillary.
I don't agree Trump here.
But I am not talking about the candidates.
I am talking about BLM, SJWs, and Feminists vs. everyone else.
With a racist, sexist, misogynist, xenophobe in the White House now, they must now show prove that his actions reflect their fears...or realise that they were misguided and tone it down.
This is the victory for Trump supporters. The man himself is but a vessel :p
> Just check the Trump's twitter account if you want to see what bullying looks like.
You can always block. Everyone defines bullying differently, and for this reason, every person can control what they see online.
Trump is by far the bigger victim. Look at all the relentless and repeated attacks on his appearance by liberals. I have never seen anyone chastise a fellow liberal over an attack on Trump's appearance.
When everyone can accuse everyone else of bullying...where do you draw the line?
> on the other hand you're against the people exercising the right.
My beef is with irrationality. I'm a natural altruist and intrinsically want to help people. But its frustrating when they don't listen and aren't willing to have a fair and reasoned debate.
So I am not against them exercising their right. I just want to help. The left may produce a good candidate in the future who I want to vote for, but if they are accusing everyone of being racist and sexist, if they are cheating in election debates, if the DNC remains corrupt, then they will continue to lose election like they have.
But as a Trump supporter, I don't have to fight for a rationale debate, the ball is not in their court as they have lost complete control of the government, and hopefully will come back to the debate floor when they realise they need to, in order to get there next guy (girl, et al.) elected.
> This all just sounds like a front to silence people who are pushing society in direction you don't want it to go (social justice things like fighting racism, sexism, homophobia, ...).
> racism, sexism, homophobia,
I don't want any of these things either :D
I just think their approach is wrong. But before I can say why...I am called a racist.
I recognise that you are trying to engage and explain your point of view. I respect that, even though I disagree with you.
You may have grievances (legitimate or otherwise) but you have to weigh up the pros and cons.
In 1920s Italy you might have been daily frustrated by the poor reliability of the railways but that didn't mean that voting for Mussolini would have been a good idea overall.
Also, not that I ascribe this to you, personally, but apparently 22% of Trump's supporters think he would start a Nuclear War. I'm struggling to understand what pros they think would outweigh that particular con.
> Italy you might have been daily frustrated by the poor reliability of the railways but that didn't mean that voting for Mussolini would have been a good idea overall.
Except you would know Mussolini had clear fascist positions. Trump was a ex-democrat and never far from the spotlight. He does not talk much about gay marriage and abortions. He doesnt have clear positions, although he does have directions like reversing illegal immigration, less interventionism. It seems none of them were judged bad enough to make trump supporters reverse their decision.
That's where the diagnosis of the democrats has gone wrong: they think it's possible that half the US is legally stupid, unable to think. They would have to back that up with statistics, iq tests etc.
Keep in mind that Thiel sued Gawker to stop freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Trump doesn't care and will appoint Thiel to a major position in his administration anyway. Trump also repeatedly sued (or threatened to sue) newspapers who published factual stories about him as well as women who he sexually abused. This is a chilling precedent for free speech: if you are rich enough, then you can just sue to silence the opposition. I don't know how you can ignore the bullying by the right.
It's my perception part of Thiel's motivation was to stop Gawker from outing closet homosexuals.
And the freedom of speech you so vigorously protect was to reveal details of a B-List celebrities sexual activities. Where is the moral courage on that?
Yes Freedom of Speech is paramount among our rights, but it's not inviolately absolute. The Gawker guys were scum but that's not why they lost their lawsuit. They lost their lawsuit because a jury felt their actions lacked news value and were a violation of privacy.
Yes Thiel had a vendetta against Gawker so he funded an unrelated lawsuit against them and used his billions to shut them down. The vendetta stemmed from the fact that the gay founder of Gawker found it horrifying that Thiel would hide his homosexuality when he should be a role model for other homosexuals that you can be gay and still be a rich and powerful VC. Whether or not you agree with Denton on that point, secretly funding unrelated lawsuits against small publications and shutting them down doesn't feel too morally courageous either. There are ways to get a sex tape removed from the Internet that don't involve permanently silencing an entire team of journalists by outspending them in lawsuits.
I don't agree with Wired that all of those were super important but some of them clearly are. For example, Buzzfeed removing articles that were critical of their advertisers, the first exposes of the Silk Road and The Armory, evidence of Greg Hardy abusing his girlfriend, etc.
> Buzzfeed removing articles that were critical of their advertisers
Wasn't that Bethesda? Somewhat important I guess, (not "we should be able to freely out gays" important) but where was Gawker during GamerGate?
> the first exposes of the Silk Road and The Armory
That helped bring it down? Maybe.. But how much investigation did it require. And how harmful was silk road? I'll admit though, if this was the first expose, it was good.
> evidence of Greg Hardy abusing his girlfriend
I'm a little concerned here, the evidence came from "court documents" - so a real court was exchanged for the court of public opinion? Was actual illegality (in court) discovered?
I never said I would have picked that battle. I simply said spending boatloads of money to shut down the entire publication in response was a strong arm bully tactic.
See my response to the parent comment if you want some actual examples instead of just cherry picking the one you don't like that they famously were shut down for.
showing a sex tape and refusing to remove it (which is why hogan was suing gawker) from your site is not freedom of press. if it was, the leakage of celebrity pics (also known as 'the fappening') would be fine, no?
also, gawker outed thiel, which is bullshit. people should come out when they are ready, not when a yellow-paged blog decides.
also, let's change genders and say gawker not only leaked but refused to remove jennifer aniston's sex tape from their site. would you call that freedom of press?
Whether or not you think what Gawker did was right, it is a terrible precedent that a billionaire can shut down the entire publication by funding lawsuits for other people against the publisher. There are ways to get the tape removed without simply outspending the press to the point where they cannot feasibly fight your lawsuit.
It is a slippery slope. No one feels too bad about a sex tape getting taken down, but cases like this ensure that journalists will have to self-censor what they publish and err on the conservative side or else risk their entire publication being closed. This has a chilling effect on investigative journalism.
> only people without money should be able to sue?
Is this what I said? No. But outspending a publication by an order of magnitude so that they either go bankrupt fighting you or lose the case is an example of how you can abuse the court system if you have way more money than your opponent. Its the same tactics large corporations use to sue small corporations in order to force them to settle regardless of whether they are right or wrong.
>> There are ways to get the tape removed without simply outspending the press to the point where they cannot feasibly fight your lawsuit.
> So this is Thiels fault, not Gawker? Gawker got away with a lot of shit before it was finally called on it.
Well yes, I see it as Thiel's fault because he wasn't a party to the case in any way but decided to give Hogan a blank check to send a huge team of lawyers after Gawker. Even if that was perhaps fair game, they didn't have to sue for so much that they literally shut down the entire organization.
>> cases like this ensure that journalists will have to self-censor what they publish
> Yes, is that difficult?
Yes it is. Its not black and white so there will necessarily be cases in the gray area (cases that could be very important and in the public interest) where publications will say "we can't publish this because we only have $10 million and someone with $10 billion could sue us and we will lose simply based on lawyer fees." For example, see the woman who was sexually harassed by Trump but backed down from talking about it publicly after Trump said he was sending an army of lawyers after her. How can someone who might make say $50,000 defend herself against a multi-billionaire? So we get censorship for no reason other than fear of billionaires suing.
> I disagree, the degrees of freedom Gawker had were far too much, it didn't even try to be fair. What actual good did Gawker do?
I don't agree with Wired that all of those were super important but some of them clearly are. For example, Buzzfeed removing articles that were critical of their advertisers, the first exposes of the Silk Road and The Armory, evidence of Greg Hardy abusing his girlfriend, etc.
> Its the same tactics large corporations use to sue small corporations in order to force them to settle regardless of whether they are right or wrong
The suggestion here is Theil bought the verdict?
> they didn't have to sue for so much
Doesn't the court decide if the amount is fair? And my point about "Gawker got away with a lot of shit" is that it is a net gain - Gawker did more harm then good.
> we will lose simply based on lawyer fees
Was that the case here? Gawker had merit, but could afford to even defend itself?
> there will necessarily be cases in the gray area
Then don't pusblish. Or just publish evidence. Neither apply here; It isn't important that Thiel is/isn't gay, it's important that Gawker shouldn't have published it. Where is the "gray area"? That Denton personally believes this personal information to be important? He should ask a lawyer. Or not use the publication as a vehicle for his personal values.
> How can someone who might make say $50,000 defend herself against a multi-billionaire?
This is a tangent, in in this case, there would be plenty wealthy liberals who hate Trump. Would it be unfair of them to do that?
You think that this kind of thing only happens on the right?
You think that the right-wing parties are more wealthy than the left-wing parties?
You are trying to confirm the "trump is bad" case. But when it is shown that Clinton is the same, and liberals are the same...we have to argue on a case-by-base basis...which is not as easy as calling out conservatives that you don't like.
I never said this only happens on the right (whether I think it occurs more on the right is a separate argument but not one that I made here). But the post I responded to was saying they voted for Trump (despite his repeated racism, sexism, and bullying) because the poster perceives the left as bullying. My point is simply that Trump and friends are serious bullies so this isn't a credible reason for choosing him over the left.
Here is the exact quote I responded to: "Its ironic that my biggest reason for voting Trump is to stop the bullying from the left"
I think masondixon's point was bullying by the left, not by Clinton. Trump is in fact a bully, and at least some of his friends seem to be too, but that doesn't actually address masondixon's point.
And in fact I think masondixon is right. The left, taken as a whole, is more bullying to most people than the right is. You can argue that, if you're LGBTQ, say, the right is more bullying. If you're just a middle class person with no personal stake in the culture wars, though, the left says that you have to agree with them (and even use their words) or you're a morally bad person who may face ostracism or even lose their job. So for the majority of people, the left is more bullying than the right.
And, as masondixon keeps pointing out, this is all in the context of an election, so how the majority feels is directly relevant.
First of all, more than half the population is female (not to even look at race, sexual orientation, those who don't identify as male or female, etc.) so the majority of people by far are not white males who have "no personal stake in the culture wars." I see every day how people use male pronouns when talking about engineers, implying time and time again that women aren't engineers or that it would be very atypical for them to be. This pushes women out of STEM fields slowly but surely over time, both because they feel they don't belong and because their superiors actually assume males will be better subconsciously due to stereotypes and language norms. You can literally put a man's name on a woman's resume and it is more likely to be accepted.
Secondly, the truth is that in most of America you are still much more likely to be harassed for being female, non-heterosexual, non-caucasian, etc. than for using the wrong pronoun. Its not like every time someone says "he" without knowing the person's gender they get called out on it. I appreciate that the original poster felt strongly about one particular case where it put someone's job at risk, but race, gender, and sexual preference put millions of jobs at risk daily.
> how people use male pronouns when talking about engineers
In French, if there are 99 women and 1 man, you use the masculine plural.
Some languages are sexist, but it ain't a big deal.
> that it would be very atypical for them to be
It currently is atypical for them to be. When there are more, it won't be atypical.
> This pushes women out of STEM fields slowly but surely over time
But do you really think this is about pronouns? I think there are other issues like women making choices to go into other fields for other reasons. There are innate psychological differences between men and women (I'm not even sure I am allowed to say this let alone go near this topic in PC-world).
Open-source programming is a place where your gender doesn't matter at all. No one ever needs to know if you are female if you don't want them to.
Its a very objective field. If I do a code review - I don't ever need to know your gender, and I can judge the quality of your code.
I mean if you are a gun female coder, and someone says "women are scared away by pronouns and are being pushed out", what are you going to think of this?
You don't want a world of male programmers thinking that a women got a job because of some diversity hire.
If I were a male entering a female dominated industry, the thought of telling them to change the she's to they's makes me a little ill.
I'd like to see a survey on women complaining about this.
If there was a quality survey of women saying their top ranked issue preventing them from entering STEM was gendered pronouns, then this would absolutely be the biggest priority!
I think there are bigger issues and this is just a bike-shedding thing that is easy for SV white knights to make themselves feel good over.
> the truth is that in most of America you are still much more likely to be harassed for being female, non-heterosexual, non-caucasian, etc.
100% agree. But the nitpicking over pronouns enrages people, and distracts from the more serious cases of outright and blatant sexism. Everyone is crying wolf these days, and it is driving sexism underground.
I know it sucks real bad, but you have to bring people along with you to change their minds. This is why Trump won.
The key is that the left's bullying aims to shut down the discussion.
The right's does not have the same objectives. It is simply for comedic value to add some flavour to an argument, and get some attention. Most of the time it is the right wanting to engage and debate, and the left refusing.
And the US intervened to cut off julian assange's internet access. They gave hillary debate questions . It's a veritable jungle between media and politics over there.
I think the right has changed. 10 years ago it was all anti-abortion, anti gay marriage, super religious, anti-healthcare.
I always use to say "I could never vote for the Republicans because of this".
So I support most the left-wing policies. But mostly it is a vote against the progressive movement, and the Bernie faction. And corruption is the ultimate destructive force in politics and the Clinton's oozed it.
I think that the more time that passes since the hey days of communism, people forget how terrible it was, and we start heading back towards it.
I think the Dems are a long, long way away from anything which vaguely passes for communisim. They're almost as capitalist as the Republicans, but - I think - more protections for equality.
The problem is that Capitalism doesn't care about people. It is a system, and the worth of commodities and even people is determined by the market. People lose their jobs because either automation can replace them, or the job can be done cheaper elsewhere. Either way, that is capitalism, and if you support capitalism then that that is the inevitable result. You can try and restrict the impact by reducing global trade, but even if you built a wall around the USA and didn't import anything, as technology gets more and more efficient there will still be fewer and fewer jobs in the USA.
What's your proposal for people who can't get jobs because there aren't enough of them?
You think that basic income is a good idea but you think that Bernie Sanders is communism? What exactly don't you like about Sanders? I'm genuinely curious because my impression was that Sanders would have done better against Trump, at least in the Midwest where Trump did very strongly.
The key is to reward people for doing good valuable work and route more of society's resources to them for productive use. The consequence of working badly or not at all can be a very modest life, it doesn't have to be starvation or homelessness.
Communism seems to assume everyone will want to work, and send out the murderous thugs when it doesn't go to plan.
I like being entrepreneurial and making things more efficient. This takes away jobs. I don't want to stop making things more efficient through automation. I don't want to hold back progress. But these people need to live. So basic income.
Sanders has too much animosity towards the wealthy.
Sorry, but this notion that Trump supporters are being unfairly criticized is a complete straw man. Vigorous criticism is what we should all expect for someone who fans the flames of mistrust and xenophobia in order to accomplish their goals. There are certain lines you just don't cross. You don't imply that 20-25% of the world population (Muslims) is unfit to enter the country. You don't peddle conspiracy theories. You don't mock disabled people. You don't brag that you can do whatever you want to women just because you're famous. You don't do even one of these things, but he did all of them and more. Trump supporters need to own up to all of this instead of whining about being called out for it.
You also shouldn't expect us to take you at all seriously if you comment with a throwaway account named after the Mason-Dixon line which, at one point in history, separated territories where slavery was either legal or not legal. Don't evoke civil war symbolism and slavery and simultaneously expect to have a calm, reasoned debate.
>Thankfully, freedom of speech is such an integral part of the US, that there is not one side trying to control what the other can say, and the other doing the same back.
That is exactly what the recent HN front page articles proposing that Facebook 'stop misinformation' are aiming to accomplish.
> Have you ever had explained the liberal rationale to you and did you understand it?
My Medium daily update newsletter is full of feminist, progressive, black lives matter articles. I read all of them. I read all the comments on Reddit, and on HN.
Everything is labelled as racism and misogynistic and full of vitriol. There is no priority on sound and valid argument. Its all about feelings.
Maybe I live in a filter bubble, but I would love to find a good example of a liberal having a rationale debate with a Trump supporter about political correctness, black lives matter, etc, that doesn't revolve around something being inherently "racist" or simply ad-hominem attacks. I cannot find anything like this.
The basic issue is people now a days are not using language properly. Its hard to accurately convey what you are actually trying to convey. When you are writing on some topic, its easy to read what you have just wrote and correct it if it came out wrong. But when you speak, unless you are speaking to a calm and patient crowd, if anything comes out wrong then that will be used against you to smear you. That is what makes politics dirty and out of reach for most people. People often wanting the same things are just fighting each other believing that everyone else is wrong. One should learn to use language properly. Another important point is do not resort to personal attacks at all. Personal attacks makes sure the other person won't listen. Everyone needs to be civil and consider what the other side is saying and the reason why they are saying it. Media needs to report actual facts of things, which is very very rare now a days. Unless these kind of basic issues go away, democracy is a lost case.
> It’s not just sometimes folks who are mad that colleges are too liberal that have a problem. Sometimes there are folks on college campuses who are liberal, and maybe even agree with me on a bunch of issues, who sometimes aren’t listening to the other side, and that’s a problem too. I’ve heard some college campuses where they don’t want to have a guest speaker who is too conservative or they don’t want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African-Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women. I gotta tell you, I don’t agree with that either. I don’t agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view. I think you should be able to — anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with ‘em. But you shouldn’t silence them by saying, "You can’t come because I'm too sensitive to hear what you have to say." That’s not the way we learn either.
> Is it fair to acknowledge that the feelings expressed in the articles you reference are valid feelings and feel true to the people who share them?
Yep!
These sensitivities are learned though. And being overly sensitive is bad for social cohesion.
A certain discipline needs to be enforced to allow society function.
The right is about tough love. The left is about coddling.
This is entirely 100% debatable though. This is the debate that should be happening IMHO. What are the side-effects if no one has to feel a bad feeling or ever be offended.
> Edit: Is it fair to acknowledge that the people of the United States have a history of discriminating against minorities?
Absolutely. But not for a long time.
We had a black president. A female can extremely close to becoming the president. Etc. Etc.
To argue that the system is against you because of your race is a hard argument to swallow now.
Do you think police shoot more black people than white people?
Do you think SJWs consider the potential side effects of their approach?
E.g:
- Establishing diversity quotas causing resentment amongst others that "they were only hired because of diversity" even if they made it there on their own without a quota or special treatment?
- Making women, and minorities feel like the system is always against them and they will not succeed so they should not try.
Thanks for replying! I was actually hoping that you would ask some more general questions,
because I would consider these examples edge-cases, and for me to talk in any useful way about them I would have to do a lot of research (the first link alone has a LOT of background).
But briefly: I thought Joyent was being melodramatic, even if I consider Noordhuis' reactions to be a bit petty.
Its always convenient to consider a change trivial when it only has benificial effects for others.
I don't know if black people are shot more than white people, the thing that most people care about is that the police seems to be a lot more agressive when it comes to black people, even when unwaranted.
Lots of "SJWs" think about side effects, the reason that the conversations that they are having on twitter and reddit aren't more nuanced/allowing for "but"s etc. is that you are fighting an uphill battle with that kind of stuff on the internet.
People like to pretend that the world has been taken over by PC-culture but the large majority on the internet still firmly hates Sjw's.
This means that they don't really consider the internet a place for "policy"-discussion, but at best as a tool to spread the message.
(Ps, none of this may have been worded very clearly or convincingly, English isn't my first language)
Its so rare to engage in a level discussion with a SJW. My experience is mostly reading stuff on Medium. Then there are the protests at college campuses on YouTube. But its easy to get trapped in a filter bubble on YouTube. You click on one video and then you are endlessly served recommendations.
It comes across as very naive a lot of the time, and its hard to find a video from a knowledgeable spokesperson. What I am always looking for is something where someone acknowledges the arguments against what they are doing and logically refutes them - but I don't think I have ever read anything like that. I think its because people believe they are morally justified and therefore criticism is invalid. It is not about utilitarianism, but that there is a duty to act regardless of the consequences or side effects. I think it is an interesting phenomenon and a very dangerous ideology. Safe spaces probably the most dangerous - where it becomes okay to never have your ideas challenged. I only wish this Trump backlash can bring them back to the table of reason, and allow themselves to be challenged.
> the reason that the conversations that they are having on twitter and reddit aren't more nuanced/allowing for "but"s etc. is that you are fighting an uphill battle with that kind of stuff on the internet.
So, I'll try to respond as someone who voted in support of Johnson, and can get the appeal of Trump as well as the Clinton, as well as visceral hatred of either.
I get that huge swaths of the electorate feel like this system hasn't been working, and that' it's all manipulated by career political insiders who have their own brand of benevolent authoritarianism. I get the distrust of a liberal culture that overvalues its own contributions to society, and has a false sense of how correct they are and why they are where they are, and overlooks their own serious problems and prejudices. I understand how the media plays into this, and believe that a lot of what Trump has said has been taken too seriously or distorted, that he was projecting a character rather than an argument, and in doing so, demonstrated empathy with a huge group of the population. I get that population has been so screwed by the current system they just want something different, whether that be Sanders or Trump.
However, I strongly believe that there's a false equivalence in these discussions, and that calls for "reasoned debate" on the American right are often intentionally or unintentionally meant as a negotiating tactic, to cover up arrogant intransigence on their part. They don't get what they want, so rather than contributing something constructive, they accuse the left of "not having a reasoned discussion" or not "compromising." When the GOP and Trump talk about the left "not compromising," they're really meaning "we're not getting what we want."
Relatedly, do you really believe that the things that Trump has said about minorities, women, and so forth are acceptable ways of leading the United States, or treating those who disagreed with you? What would the GOP do if the liberal candidate said the same things about Trump?
Which party shut down congress repeatedly rather than have a reasoned discussion? Which party has been obstructing and crippling the supreme court because they didn't get their way?
The reality is that the GOP lost this election in terms of votes, and yet are still entering the white house because of a broken electoral voting system. Like it or not, Clinton won more votes than Trump. So Trump and the GOP are going to undo everything the majority voted for to get their selfish agenda, because they don't care about the majority of the electorate that voted for someone else.
Who is being unreasonable in this situation? It's not the liberal party.
I have plenty of reasons to be angry with both parties, but Trump is dangerous in a way that Clinton was not. Sure, I could find some bright sides to his ticket, but it's overshadowed by a lot to be terrified by.
I could not in good conscience vote for either Trump or Hillary. Both were appalling candidates.
Why was Clinton appalling? 25 years of scandals. DNC biasing the primary in her direction. The email server. (I've worked in internet security; that was a horrible decision. It was also completely against policy, which gave the impression that she thought rules were for other people. And it at least looked like she did it to avoid any emails coming home to haunt her presidential run.) The Clinton Foundation at least gave the appearance of "pay for play".
Also, she was very much the establishment candidate. In an election where many people were extremely dis-satisfied with the status quo, that was fatal.
My impression is that some people genuinely bought Trump's message - but not enough of them to win the election. There were a large number of "not Hillary" voters who put Trump over the top. That doesn't make them "pro Trump", it makes them "anti Hillary".
Would you really be saying this if Clinton lost the popular vote?
> calls for "reasoned debate" on the American right
We are not talking about discussion at a political level. This isn't about the GOP. The GOP hates Trump. Its at an interpersonal level. Person to person. Comment to comment.
Look at this thread as a case in point. You will see a perfect sample of the kind of discourse you get when you start talking with liberals. Plenty of accusations of sexism, racism, xenophobia. And I'm just a username on a forum. I could be a gay, female, muslim, illegal immigrant and I would still have been called these things. And also would be called out for betraying the liberal cause. :(
If he doesn't leave the country worse off then what it is right now then I'll admit that I was wrong in thinking that he would screw up this country. If he actually makes it better then I'll admit that he was a good choice.
The country by the way is in pretty good condition right now. People have easily forgotten 2008. I really hope we do not need to do another clean up in 2020.
Will you accept you screw up if he screws up the country?
By the way, I think you are trying to gaslight us by using half truths. The same half truths you've used to convince yourself that Trump is good for the country.
> By the way, I think you are trying to gaslight us by using half truths. The same half truths you've used to convince yourself that Trump is good for the country.
I value rationale debate above all else. The ability to debate ideas is being silenced extremely effectively by the progressives and it will continue. For me, I prioritise this freedom of speech and ability to debate the issues with opposing viewpoints above all else.
This is my true goal.
This election revealed the true liberal media bias with their self-admitted inability to realise what was happening around them.
> Will you accept you screw up if he screws up the country?
Yep.
> If he doesn't leave the country worse off then what it is right now then I'll admit that I was wrong in thinking that he would screw up this country. If he actually makes it better then I'll admit that he was a good choice.
This is good news, I think? Thiel has some extremish views, but I generally regard him as intelligent and thoughtful. And he's in close contact with other smart, influential people (e.g. Musk, Sam Altman, etc.), which gives them some indirect influence.
Not that this makes things substantially better. But maybe a little bit? Hopefully?
How about "not afraid to make reasonable insights that run the risk of being misinterpreted as politically incorrect"? I watched his RNC speech for the first time today (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTJB8AkT1dk). I couldn't fault it. Maybe if we could park our bourgeois principles for a moment and listen to the voices of the economically depressed regions in the country that voted for Trump, we could unite and find a common solution? It seems to me this is what Thiel stands for. Half the country has been suffering at the hands of technological progress, environmental regulation and globalization for almost three decades, while the Bay Area has thrived in its economic bubble. What is progress for if it doesn't help people?
Income was pretty strongly positively correlated with voting for Trump over Clinton. The 'white working class revolt' narrative is only a small part of what happened on Tuesday.
Yes this is what everyone missed. If you watched South Park over the past 3 seasons, or watched Milo Yiannopolous' videos on YouTube, there is a battle going on against the progressive movement. Its about freedom of speech. But the liberals failed to see this, because they were too busy labelling everyone misogynist and racist.
Sure there are these guys, they are online in reddit's /r/pussypassdenied, they might froth at the mouth when they say 'lock her up'. These guys have always been easy to hear, those voices are still coming from inside the bubble of firstworldproblems. This is not what Thiel seems to be talking about, or what Trump has put up on his website. Perhaps Trump's personality faults are being used to keep us on this narrative that the modern economic progressive movement is working for all of us, and anyone who says differently is intellectually or morally flawed? This might explain why we have managed to leave half the population in our economic trail dust for 25 odd years.
His head-over-heels support for a decidedly anti-libertarian candidate like Trump is in itself quite extremist. This has always been one of the standard tools for (crypto-)fascists and closet authoritarians of all ilks to get into positions of influence -- by using people of nominally "opposing" viewpoints as, in effect, wedge instruments to disrupt the system as violently as possible -- and then step into the emergent vacuum.
And somewhat secondarily, there are the antics of his pals at the Seasteading Institute in blatantly courting partnership with the government in Honduras (basically the most murderous government left in the hemisphere) in order to set up a libertarian microstate in the heart of certain piece of "jungle" that just so happens to also be claimed by one of the region's poorest and most ill-treated ethnic groups.
Thiel's own role in this venture (if any) is unclear -- but his association with the SSI (and the principle actors in this "venture") is well-established.
> His head-over-heels support for a decidedly anti-libertarian candidate like Trump
Is Trump anti-libertarian? His policies seem fairly libertarian to me. I suppose being anti-abortion could be considered anti-libertarian, and maybe you could frame his immigration stance as non-libertarian? But i'm not sure. Libertarians don't necessarily extend their liberty to non-citizens.
Are you thinking of some others? I'm perfectly willing to be wrong about this. I just can't think of any major instances where he deviates from what i'd consider to be a libertarian agenda.
His numerous sexual assaults on women (and indisputable, caught-on-tape remarks on the subject) are as diametrically opposed to the libertarian "non-coercion" principle" as one can get, I'd say.
1) Seems a bit strong to tell someone what they can and can't say.
2) He didn't get half the country to vote for him. It looks like around 55-60% of voters turned out this year (the whole tally isn't calculated yet). Of those, he got less than 50% (as Clinton got more votes than him). So at best he seems to have gotten around 30% of the voters to vote for him. Not everyone is a voter (age, other disqualifying factors). So even if he had somehow gotten 50% of voters (which, again, he didn't), he'd still have less than half the country voting for him.
I agree with gnarbarian. Being an extremist is defined as being far outside the norm. Even with a low voter count, it seems irrational to suggest that the majority of the people who voted in this election are people with views far outside the norm in America and the majority with ordinary views just didn't go to the polls. If someone can convince the large majority of voters in a country to pick them, I think it's a strong suggestion that their views are well within the norm for that country.
Trump could never be elected into office here in Canada, even with a low voter count because his views are far outside of the norm of how many Canadians think. America is different with a different culture, and the only evidence we have (polling data) suggests that the views of a great many Americans in 2016 line up pretty closely with the views of Mr. Trump.
I'm saying that "extreme" and "extremist" are not things with an objective reality, but rather things defined with reference to an existing group. What is extreme for one group may not be extreme for another group.
An election is basically a poll of whose views the population supports. So any person elected by that population must be a person with views that said population does not find extreme.
I think this is a problem with modern liberalism in that "extreme" has become synonymous with "people who disagree with me" or "people who don't share my right kind of opinions"
a person who holds extreme or fanatical political or
religious views, especially one who resorts to or advocates
extreme action.
Nothing about this requires they not be the majority or even a very significant minority. It just requires they hold extreme views.
Nothing about this requires viewing them only through a local and not a global lens, either.
And just because people voted for Trump doesn't mean they agree with all or even any of his positions. (Anecdata) I've spent the last several days speaking with numerous people who voted for him despite disagreement on many of his policy positions, strictly because they were voting against Clinton.
But how do you define extreme? Consider this, believing non-whites are morally and intellectually inferior would be considered an extreme and fanatical position.
However this was not considered an extreme position in the 1800s because, unforutnately, it was the majority position.
The problem you are having is you are defining extreme with reference to what you and the people around you believe to be extreme and fanatical rather than defining it based on what the majority consider extreme and fanatical, and the best evidence we have for the majority view in America is a very recent poll.
Most extremists do not consider their views extreme. It largely requires an outside view (literally as in another time or place, or figuratively as in the non-extremists colocated with them).
In particular, though, that view is demonstrably false. Anyone holding it can be considered an "extremist" just on the grounds of holding onto false beliefs (though falsification still has to occur).
A modern example is (not a majority view) the anti-vaxxer crowd.
Another one which is closer to a majority view (certainly a significant minority), is the anti-climate change crowd.
How about the anti-evolution crowd (which has a lot of overlap with the above two), a significant minority in the US as evidenced by our K-12 biology textbooks.
All you are saying here is "people who disagree with me about vaccination and climate change are extreme because they are blind to evidence"
Obviously these people have a very different interpretation of the evidence and the conclusions that can be drawn from it. To suggest they are crazy because they disagree with you or find your evidence unconvincing is the same kind of smugness that cost Ms. Clinton and the democratic party this election.
I'm not running for office any time soon, so my smugness will cost me nothing but karma here. I'm not suggesting they're crazy, I'm suggesting they're holding views which, by all reasonable evidence, appear to be false. These are not "opinion" views. You can't opinion your way into autism from vaccines. You can't opinion your way out of climate change.
People who believe vaccines cause autism (today) are fanatics.
People who deny climate change is happening (today) are fanatics.
I think you can with regard to climate change - no one is saying that the termpreature isn't getting warmer, what they are arguing is whether human released CO2 is the cause. It's probably not going to be a popular opinion on this website but there are some holes in climate science that points to humans as the major contributor. For example:
1 The climate record started in 1800 which was one of the coldest periods in history - 1816 is popularly called the year without a summer and there had been a little ice age that started in the 1600s and ended during the 1800s (of course it's been rapidly warming since then)
2. Recent NASA observations show glacial retreat and warming on Mars that happened exactly at the same time as global warming on earth suggesting possible solar origion of climate change rather than human caused.
3. I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that conclusively links a warming climate with human released CO2. All we are told is that CO2 makes things warmer and that humans are releasing more CO2 than before. That's not enough, for climate change to be plausable they have to show that human released CO2 is enough to make a meaningful impact on atmospheric composition such that it makes the earth warmer. I don't think we have enough understanding of how atmosphere behaves or even of how much gases we are releasing to make those kinds of conclusions.
now my purpose isn't to get into a debate on climate change here, all I want to demonstrate is that the people who deny man made climate change aren't crazy or fanatical, they are ordinary rational people that for whatever reason have reached a different conclusion and we should not be so quick to dismiss them. The hallmark of rationality is willing to inquire and debate for the validity of opinions, not dismiss opinions outright as fanatical or crazy without at least looking at the other side's evidence.
> no one is saying that the termpreature isn't getting warmer
Many are, until recently the most common talking point was "it's cooled since 1998".
1. We have temperature data going back lot further than that, just not direct measurements.
2. Mars has an extremely different atmosphere than ours, Our only commonality is the sun which is actually in a cool period.
3. Can you propose a better explanation for the observed warming? It's a massive amount of energy that has to come from somewhere. When there is a theory that fits the data and you want to challenge that then you need a better theory. Galileo faced the same problem.
> 3. I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that conclusively links a warming climate with human released CO2.
Now, I don't know much about climate change either, so I googled it. The IPCC 2007 report outlined how the last 20,000 years of glacial record show a warm period very similar to the four warm periods in the 600,000 years prior. However, the CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O levels in the last 250 years have continued to rise beyond the normal peak, currently exceeding previous records by over a full range. So it's evident that something has been releasing unprecedented levels of greenhouse gases in the remarkably short time since the industrial revolution.
As for CO₂ in particular, it's merely the most direct byproduct of burning wood, coal, and oil. It's not the strongest greenhouse gas, it is the simplest causal link between the massive sustained burning of carbon and vast quantities of CO₂ spontaneously appearing. If you want to know more about how CO₂ is a greenhouse gas, I'll be happy to google that, too.
> currently exceeding previous records by over a full range.
What is a full range? does that have a number, is it a million kg per year? 5 million? And how does that compare to the actual atmosphere composition given that the atmosphere forms a 300 mile thick radius around the entire planet. Is the amount of greenhouse gases released by humans enough to make a dent in something large enough to form a 300 mile thick layer around the planet? Lets face it - you and climate science doesn't have the answers to these questions and until it does it will remain a hypothesis.
A full range is max-min. In the case of CO₂, the usual level is 200-250 ppm, with warm periods reaching as high as 300 ppm, giving a range of 100. The recent warm period of 10,000 years had it up to 280, and it reached 300 around 1900. The current level is 400 ppm.
The six gases in the atmosphere that appear above 60 ppm have a combined mass of about 14.85 g/mol. Removing 100 ppm of CO₂ would reduce the mass of the atmosphere by 1.23 g/mol, or 8%. To convert that to kg/year, we have to take 8% of the mass of the atmosphere, roughly 5.14E18 kg, and divide by 100 years.
So a range is 4 thousand million million kg per year, or 4000 short scale gigatons per year, and is absolutely able to make a bulge in the atmosphere.
edit: I re-calculated the mass of the atmosphere. assuming that CO₂=C+O₂. This time I got 14.3790 g/mol, where replacing 100 PPM of CO₂ with O₂ reduces the mass by 0.0012 g/mol or 0.008%. That would correspond to 4 gigatons per year, whereas current estimates are 40 gigatons per year.
I calculated the mass a third time, this time assuming nitrogen was molecular. This yields an atmospheric mass of 29.1 g/mol, of which CO₂ represents 604 ppm by mass, squaring with existing estimates. Then replacing 100 ppm of CO₂ with O₂ lowers the atmospheric mass by 1.2 mg/mol, or 4.1E-5, corresponding to a yearly added mass of 2.1 Gt.
You know, not that I think about it, I should probably just look things up on my own. I don't get the feeling that you are particularly inquisitive or willing to discuss the topic.
It would be a significant mischaracterization of the state of the evidence on both those issues to say there is all that much room for interpretation.
A more likely reason for holding the extremist position of an anti-vaxxer or climate change denier is the usual cognitive biases against incorporating new information inconsistent with one's current mental model.
> So at best he seems to have gotten around 30% of the voters to vote for him.
What do you mean by this exactly? Trump lost the popular election with 47.5% support to Clinton's 47.7%. How did you come up with the "around 30%" figure?
I just grabbed the first website in the search results that had numbers, which are based on projections. I'm not standing behind their accuracy (I don't even recognize the site), but I have no reason to suspect they'd be purposefully wrong. And we're talking ballpark figures anyway.
Assuming 60% voter turnout (55-60% based on tallies at the time I wrote that, so 60% is the most optimistic/generous view). With 47.5% of that 60%, that puts him at around 28.5% of all potential voters voting for him. Near enough to 30% for my back of the envelope calculations. I did neglect the third-party candidates' percentages when I made that estimate, though.
EDIT: Out of curiosity I looked some numbers up, going just by the ones that did turn out to vote, she has 47.52% of the cast votes, he has 47.19%. The difference in votes is around 400k.
Well, you wrote, 'he got less than 50% (as Clinton got more votes than him),' which means that the reason Mr. Trump received less than half the votes is that Mrs. Clinton received more than half the votes, which isn't true: both of them received less than half the votes because some voters voted for neither.
It's interesting that I'm being downvoted because folks think I'm a Trump partisan (I'm not!) I'm just pointing out facts, not opinion.
I was responding to someone claiming that a majority voted for Trump, which is a falsifiable statement. My response was to use the quickest, factual statement to counter it (Clinton had the largest block of the popular vote, therefore Trump must be under 50%). Perhaps I should have responded with the actual percentages (which showed they were both under the 50% mark), but there's no need to read into my writing statements that I did not make.
His phrase, 'he got less than 50% (as Clinton got more votes than him),' implies that Mr. Trump received less than 50% because Mrs. Clinton received more votes than him, which is not true: they both received less than 50% because a significant portion of voters chose not to vote for either.
If there are at least two candidates in an election, and one has more votes than all the others, none of the others can have over 50%.
This does not, strictly speaking, imply that the winning (by plurality rules, not majority rules) candidate has over 50%, it merely sets the bounds on what all other candidates can have.
Clinton has more votes (popular vote) than Trump, ergo, he cannot have had 50% of the vote. That was my statement, and it's a factual statement. You interpreted it to imply that she, then, must have had over 50% of the vote. That was not my statement nor my intended implication.
Yes, you can. Your rebuttal doesn't even hold together logically. Extremism isn't defined by lack of popular support. Our entire system of government was designed in part out of a fear of the extremism of the massed public.
The most clear statement from him I'm aware of is "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."
1:15 PM - 6 Nov 2012.
This comes from his philosophy BA at Stanford, which is a department largely of the analytic school. He is, broadly speaking, positivist. The idea of science we have is closer to the German Wissenschaft which has a more encyclopedic meaning, more about the organization of knowledge, and less strict in it epistemology which in the analytic school is very narrow and in its crude expression simply empiricist.
Sounds nice, but if you listen to what he actually said in that video it's pretty darn loopy and contorted thinking, no matter how you slice it. And when directly asked, he does say that he thinks climate science is "more pseudo-science" than a real science.
Hmm so in that case, "political science", "materials science", "veterinary science", "biomedical science", "actuarial science", etc. etc. are all not "real" science. Very convincing argument, I have to say.
He says that "it's often a tell that they're bluffing," which is a far cry from the universal condemnation of anything with 'science' in the name that you seem to be assuming. Please make an attempt to understand, then argue.
His whole reasoning in that section in the video is just stilly. The reason some subjects have "science" in them and others don't is usually just a matter of convention or linguistic accident -- it really doesn't have that much import (and in any case, no bearing at all on the substantive issues behind climate change). And yet, he's trying to draw the conclusion that there's some kind of a deep, revealing "tell" behind it.
Pseudo-intellectual tripe which we're supposed to take seriously (because he's a billionaire, I guess).
The claim is not "climate science isn't (real because it has science in the name)", but "(climate science isn't real) (because it has science in the name)". That is, the name is being used as a reason to discount it.
That's not really a science either. While there are things like experiments and the scientific method, most of computer science is a confluence of mathematics and engineering.
I looked at your article and it seems he's just saying that when women were enfranchised, the type of democracy we had became less supportive of libertarianism.
I have no idea whether that's true or not, but misquoting him is not contributing to an intelligent dialogue.
That quote follows Thiel around on here. Someone always brings it up as damning, even though Thiel's statement is a bit vague and likely exactly what you stated.
I didn't quote him, I made an assumption about the quote. He said the country was better before women got the vote. He doesn't say that libertarians should try to figure out how to earn women's vote, but rather that women don't vote for libertarian policies/candidates and that is in his view the problem. Its a very short logical jump to infer that he thinks women shouldn't vote. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not sure he's ever corrected this misunderstanding, if it is in fact a misrepresentation of his true opinion.
Would it be fair to compare this to saying "I think architecture was better in the ancient times, when low-paid craftmen fashioned each stone by hand"? If I said this, I don't think it should be assumed that I'm in favour of eliminating living wages for laborers.
I agree with you on your last point. I don't think Thiel is too concerned with people misunderstanding him, and he certainly could be more specific.
He said that women are a tough constituency for libertarianism and capitalism, but that "It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away." How on earth are you getting "women shouldn't be allowed to vote" from that?
Well, for one, that he chose to say "will be taken away" when responding to this criticism, instead of "should be taken away," implying that he thinks they ought to be taken away (because it would allow for his libertarian utopia) but that it won't happen for other reasons.
That's not quite accurate. What he did say was bad enough without exaggeration for effect. He said women voting led to less libertarianism, and he regards less libertarianism as a tragedy. He claims that he supports women voting.
He also said that 'democracy and freedom are incompatible' because the masses don't vote for his libertarian paradise.
He may get a pass for not (directly) advocating that women shouldn't be allowed to vote. But what he did say is sufficiently stomach-turning that one has to question the judgement of any tech company that would want to maintain associations with such a person, in any capacity.
In any case there's also this precious quote
Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.
Which, if read properly, is very revealing about the vision he has in mind for society.
When you see comments like this, it's little wonder Thiel has gotten interested in Seasteading. Perhaps he thinks it's the only way to escape from this most virulent strain of stupid.
If we're going to debug what's wrong with America, this comment is like ground zero. Start here, and work backwards.
"Peter Thiel wrote a book called The Diversity Myth where he said that race mixing would destroy white culture"
This is a lie, and it's exactly the kind of lie that Thiel is trying to call out as insufferable oppression on campus and in intellectual discussion.
Having lived in very 'multicultural' places, and fairly homogeneous places, it's clear to me that there are both advantages and disadvantages to each - and to quash all discussion in one direction is totalitarian and oppressive.
Japan is the most orderly and civilized place on planet earth and it has a lot to do with the homogenous nature of their culture. Nordic countries, though they are 'intellectually liberal' - are culturally extremely conservative and traditional and 'homogenous' in culture and thinking, and this is one of the key ingredients to their social successes, and why simple socialist policies will not reproduce what they have. Sweden has a very popular Monarchy, and official religion (Christianity), a state Church into which 1% of tax revenues goes. Of course they are not very religious at all, but can you imagine a 'state religion' in America? And 1% of taxes going to it? That would be considered 'extreme, extreme right wing' - and yet it is a very real fact in Sweden. It's one piece of the 'underlying base social fabric' there.
I'm not arguing for or against multiculturalism, other than to say there are many drawbacks of multiculturalism, and that in North America especially there is a vicious oppression of ideas and debate in this area, fostered by comments such as the one you made. The issue obviously can be commandeered by populists racists (which is scary), but it never gets that far because someone yells 'racist' and shuts down all intelligent thinking.
I grew up in very Multicultural Toronto and thought it was superior. After living around the world I now live in a very 'Quebecois' part of Montreal that is nearly homogenous - and though I'm definitely a 'minority' and not part of that culture, I like it much better. People here are happy, civil, and there is a sense of community that absolutely does not exist in Toronto or Vancouver (or San Francisco, for that matter).
So enough with the knee-jerk reactionary hyperbole, try to allow for a little more nuance in issues like this.
You're entitled to your personal preferences in where/how you like to live, but none of that changes the facts that:
1. Peter Thiel indeed wrote a book called 'the Diversity Myth'
and
2. that book claims that multiculturalism exists to destroy white culture
If you're going to argue that the above claim is a "lie", you are obliged to show where that lie is.
Your only plausible avenue (as I can see it) is to somehow object that 'multiculturalism' is not essentially the same thing as meant by the term 'race-mixing', but your response here only convinces me that you agree that in this context the two terms mean effectively the same thing .
> 2. that book claims that multiculturalism exists to destroy white culture
> If you're going to argue that the above claim is a "lie", you are obliged to show where that lie is.
If you're going to claim that Thiel's book states that multiculturalism exists to destroy white culture, then aren't you obliged by your own logic to show proof of your claim?
I don't have a horse in this race, but it's irritating to see you make a claim and then say that any contradictor is required to show proof when you haven't actually done so yourself.
I didn't actually claim that Thiels book states the line in question, the claim was actually made by an earlier commenter, presumably based either (a) directly from the book itself or (b) from the phrase in this bloomberg article [1] that is indicated to as a direct quote from the book in question.
My point was, edblarey objecting "that is a lie!" and then decrying that multiculturalism is bad is nonsensical.
Is the lie that Thiel wrote the book? Its existence is a matter of public record. Does he instead mean that it is a lie that the book makes the claim that "multiculturalism exists to destroy western culture"? Did Bloomberg fabricate the quote? Or does the quote exist but when considered in context mean something different than Bloomberg claims?
All of these are certainly possibilities, but we can't hope to divine which one edblarney means because he spent his comment defending the multiculturalism-is-bad angle (irrelevant to whether Thiel made the claim in question) rather than point out how Thiels claim either does not exist, or does exist but has a different meaning in context.
The book is not arguing against multiculturalism or diversity but rather it is arguing that multiculturalism and diversity are being used as an excuse to stifle free speech and silence dissenting opinions in institutions of higher learning. You are misrepresenting what the book is about.
Your statement referred to 'race mixing' which is quite another thing altogether.
It's entirely possible to be 'offended' by the total destruction of one's culture and not so much by any inherent 'race mixing' that may be the result of that.
But yes - multiculturalism will definitely 'destroy' any culture wherein it is implemented - white/black/red or brown. That's a simple fact.
'Diversity' in the world is destroyed with multiculturalism. You get a 'rainbow of skin colours and last names' - sure - but you get a narrowing of culture and ideals. You get the lowest common denominator - not 'multiple viewpoints'.
You don't get 'more ideas' - you get 'officially sanctioned ideals'.
'Cultures' need 'critical mass' to exist, and they cannot be defined by GDP or social policy. Once there are too many cultures, or culturally secular ideals - the 'local culture' is completely abolished.
When you have 'diversity' in a locale - you break down cultural bonds - and replace them with material products - like Starbucks and McDonald's - and culturally secular values.
Example: I was in Tunisia recently, I drank a 'Tunisian tea' (what I called it). It was dirt cheap. The Coca-Cola was 2x more expensive. Paradox: selling 'coca cola' is essentially better for the GDP - 2x more dollars changing hands. Culturally secular politicians and economists will see this 'GDP growth' and push hard on it across all consumer and business sectors. New shopping malls with H&M, Zara, Starbucks, Monoprix, Carrefour etc. etc. - are literally up-ending all of the unique culture of some parts of that country.
After a while, 'Tunis', 'Toronto' and 'Singapore' will be the same place: same secular laws, same products, same services, same clothes, possibly speaking English, working in cubicles, driving the same cars back and forth.
All unique cultural artifacts - and there are many of them - abolished.
Tunisia is a very strange place to me - and that's what makes it great. I'm not looking forward to going back in 25 years when it's all been wiped out by globalism.
'Multiculturalism' is really just a very short transition period between 'culture' (i.e. diversity in the world) and 'globalized, culturally secular nation states'.
America (and Canada) are obviously special places where multicultural identity means something different than say Germany or Tunisia, nevertheless, the conversation should be allowed to had.
We already have a great deal of 'diversity' on planet earth, just get on an airplane! Most attempts to create 'more diversity' in a specific local (usually with the benign objective of wanting people to 'get along better') , actually reduces the 'net diversity' of the world, ironically.
Your example of Sweden having an official religion is no longer current.
The Church of Sweden is since 2000 no longer a state church. That said, it's been possible to opt-out since 1868, and since 1996 membership is opt-in (upon baptizing) and not inherited based on the membership of the parents. Slightly less than two thirds of the population are still members, and it is losing members far faster than simple attrition would have it (about one percentage point per year).
If you are a member of the Church of Sweden (or any other registered religion), the state will help collect membership taxes for it, but that should be taken more as a measure of Nordic efficiency than as a tacit endorsement of any particular belief.
" the state will help collect membership taxes for it, but that should be taken more as a measure of Nordic efficiency than as a tacit endorsement of any particular belief."
I take it as neither.
I take it that the 'Church' is a cultural epitaph, not even so much a religious one.
It doesn't matter 'what one believes'. It matters a little bit that colocated people share some common faith, and the rituals, prayers, holidays, sense of spirit, goodwill - are synchronous in some way.
When those are torn apart - and there is no 'common culture' - some of which is based on 'religion' - then there literally is no ethnicity, and arguably no nation.
You mention 'Nordic efficiency'. It's true, Nordic countries are somewhat 'efficient'.
But will Sweden be a 'Nordic' country when it's 20% ethnically Swedish, 10% German, 8% American, 5% Norwgian, 5% Somali, 5% Russian etc. etc.?
What will make Sweden any different from Norway, which has almost the same ethnic composition, the same rules?
The only difference between Norway and Sweden in 100 years might be the colour of your flags. English will be the dominant language, and ethnically, everyone will be 'from somewhere else'.
Anyhow - thanks for your correction, but I don't think it changes the nature of my point.
Multiculturalism has consequences, and it should be a choice, not something that is foisted upon people as a moral position.
As you rightly point out, my reply was not meant as more than a factual rebuttal - which of course is valuable in and of itself if you want to make a coherent and sound argument.
You also conveniently cut out the point that the state will collect membership taxes for the Church of Sweden, just as happily as it will for the local catholic branch or one of two registered islamic congregations.
I'm not sure what the rest of your post has to do with mine.
Can I encourage you to get in the habit of phrasing this in terms of "many (but by no means all) Japanese people", "many Japanese institutions", "many Japanese people in positions of authority", or similar? I think we probably see eye to eye on the scope of the problem, but it is unfortunate to turn it into Japan's problem, because it is very, very important that folks are not presented with the choice "You can either be authentically Japanese or reject racism _but not both_." There are a number of people who believe and instruct that that is a choice; people of good will should give them no aid or comfort.
We should see perfectly eye to eye on this, because you're who I learned this from. At any rate: that's what I meant by the word "society".
When someone composes an appeal to the tranquil monoculturalism of Japan, the thing they should be immediately confronted with is the fierce racism that makes up the core of that culture. Cultures change; Japan's inevitably will get to where ours is today (hopefully we'll keep making it hard for them to completely catch up).
If you would (sensibly) like to dispute Japan's tranquil monoculturalism on a message board thread or elsewhere, a better approach to take is "Japan is often described as a monocultural country but it is not." This is true, novel, and gives you the opportunity to drop e.g. a citation for Sugitomo's An Introduction to Japanese Society, which is a really excellent academic text, or Making Common Sense of Japan, which is sadly out of print but a fantastic book qua book. (30 second example: Japan has large ethnic minorities like e.g. Koreans whose experience is often materially different than that of people who are ethnically Japanese; the discourse of Japanese monoculturalism margainalizes their experience and, for bonus points, makes their lives materially worse. Japan has religious minorities; you might sensibly predict life is difficult for them; you might sensibly predict this implies that e.g. no Japanese PMs come from religious minorities; you got one of those two predictions correct.)
I'd politely double down on encouraging you to not attempt to win this argument by saying "Japan actually is a monoculture and that culture's core is racism." People will believe you. This is materially less true than the not-a-monoculture argument and, separate from the truth of it, it is internally and externally a dangerous thing to have be believed.
I literally don't understand what you are trying to say. Again: you are the person who informed me of this --- in fact, almost the exact words I used in my earlier comment have come out of your mouth, multiple times.
Can you give me a single sentence that you think is closer to the truth, without examples or citations to books?
Would the sentence "Japan is way way more racist than America" work? If not, I'm going to express further surprise, because that is a sentence you have used before.
I'm splitting hairs, perhaps unnecessarily so, about exact word choice used to communicate the ground facts. We agree about the ground facts.
>> Would the sentence "Japan is way way more racist than America" work? If not, I'm going to express further surprise, because that is a sentence you have used before.
Is this a quote or a paraphrase? I'd be mildly surprised if I said those exact words and did not do an immediate verbal retraction. I have recollection of writing e.g. "[I]s racism a bigger problem in Japan than e.g. in the United States? Yes."
Consider it from the perspective of a government bureaucrat who has the brief Protect Japan From Threats. In the formulation "Japan is a fiercely racist society", and his goal is to protect Japan from threats, anyone opposing racism is a threat. In the formulation "Racism is a big problem in Japan", his goal can plausibly be "Reduce racism in Japan", much like it could be "Reduce poverty in Japan" or "Reduce unemployment in Japan." I like making/keeping space available for people to embrace that second interpretation.
You said those exact words, laughing, walking on Wells Street in Chicago.
I take your meaning about being careful not to lock in an unsatisfactory status quo with rhetoric. I think you know that's not what I'm trying to do.
Here, the connection between the comment I was replying to and my summary about Japanese society is particularly powerful. That commenter is selecting an attribute of Japanese society for praise that you and I know is deeply problematic. I know you agree with me: importing the cultural attribute that commenter is referring to would be a tragedy.
I apologize and retract any comments made on Wells Street or elsewhere that were carelessly drafted.
I know you're not trying to lock in the status quo. If I had a guess, you're trying to win a message board debate? Which is something I'm sort of onboard with. So, just as a tactical discussion between two message board debaters who are approximately on the same side here, you've got tactical option #1 "Grant the untrue premise of an argument which you believe is damaging and then attempt to litigate an implication of it in a fashion which, if your opponent was savvier, he'd be saying feeds the Thiel narrative and which, independently of message board debates, is a net negative thing to have believed in the world" or tactical option #2 "Counter the untrue premise by destroying it in detail with actual facts; score lots of easy Internet debate points with specificity and style."
I've read this three times now and I'm still not clear what you're trying to say.
Since you're retracting your Wells Street comment, could you add some additional value and maybe explain to people not privy to our conversations why I might believe that Japan is far more racist than the US?
> Japan has religious minorities; you might sensibly predict life is difficult for them; you might sensibly predict this implies that e.g. no Japanese PMs come from religious minorities; you got one of those two predictions correct.
Being a religious minority in Japan can be challenging in a variety of ways; at least 3 Japanese PMs have been Christian (Catholic x2 Baptist X1 off top of head). This is a deep topic of narrow interest; ask me over drinks sometime if you want the full geekiness about it.
You'll note that I did not dispute whether Japan was intolerant of other religions. How many PMs of Japan have been anything other than ethnic Japanese?
Edit window has expired, I went to check, the few in particular were born and raised in japan. I'm debating whether or not to give these channels more exposure at the moment, they're not particularly large and won't be ready for what will happen.
No region of America reaches the level of racism that is acceptable and ingrained in Japanese society. Rural working class white towns don't have many minorities in them, but they have some, and their children aren't sent to separate schools.
I believe Trump to be deeply racist, and I recognize a fiercely racist strain of his followers. But those people also make great television. I think Trump's followers are willing to abide racism, because the alternative is a status quo that promises hopelessness for their children. I don't condone racism and I think the mainstream middle-aged Trump base will eventually be ashamed to tell their grandchildren they supported Trump --- but that's because they have a moral core that does not accept racism.
I do not believe you can make the same generalization about Japanese society --- or about many other societies in the world! It's a sign of the health of our culture that we so openly confront our racism.
> I generally regard him as intelligent and thoughtful
Based on a YouTube video mentioned in another comment thread (https://youtu.be/CoxxGhLFbw4?t=2m30s), I wouldn't regard him as intelligent by any means.
What's with mentioning that he went to Stanford law school? This is the second such comment (the other commenter deleted it for some reason). Is someone incapable of having illogical thoughts because they went to "Stanford law school"?
He says this in the video:
> Whenever you hear someone use the word science it's like a tell that they're bluffing
You said "I wouldn't regard him as intelligent by any means" (emphasis mine). If you don't want people to question your statements, try not to make them so sweeping.
Someone that graduated from Stanford twice is definitely intelligent by some means.
How about not putting words in my mouth? I never said I don't want people to question my statements. Do so all you want.
> Someone that graduated from Stanford twice is definitely intelligent by some means.
I just don't pay attention to his Stanford degrees as much as I do to his words. And they certainly don't impress me. Now, you may have a different opinion and you're free to do so. But I don't agree with it.
"The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics."
I wonder if he doesn't know or if he doesn't care how that might sound to people who were legally denied basic citizenship rights in the 1920s, or the descendants of those people. The 1920s were politically bleak for quite a few Americans.
It's understandable that people would like everything to be connotation managed so their sensibilities are never offended, but it's also a very valuable skill to be able to turn off the ability to be offended and just try to comprehend the intended meaning of something. It makes communication so much more viable.
Oddly, both the title and the article skip over the fact that Thiel was a founder of Palantir Technologies (which has plenty of government contracts). Conflicts of interest be damned
Most powerful, wealthy interests support both sides. The only thing truely frightening for the status quo is probably someone like Bernie Sanders being in the white house. Dow Jones would not be popping up if that was the case.
- Did a BA in philosophy at Stanford--an analytic department--in the late 80s.
- As Reaganism was reaching its apex, he became a libertarian.
- The 90s were a period of pessimism. As the Reagan revolution was in retreat, and as conservatives retreated with it, the "smartest" libertarians sought to move beyond it. So he registered the crisis of libertarianism acutely, and went looking for the solution outside politics altogether--hence the rhetoric from early Paypal about creating a "new world currency" that would bring about the "end of monetary sovereignty". The point was to create new forms of being which would be free simply by virtue of being new. (Nothing wrong with that, and Marxists have a term for it: reification.)
- While the crisis of 2009 further confirmed the bankruptcy of the political project of libertarianism, he thought its understanding of the world was still fundamentally true: "Exhibit A is a financial crisis caused by too much debt and leverage, facilitated by a government that insured against all sorts of moral hazards — and we know that the response to this crisis involves way more debt and leverage, and way more government." But here the answer is the same as it was in the 90s: retreat from politics and build "new worlds."
What's remarkable about Theil is that he fully grasps the crisis of bourgeois society, to the point where he says, "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of 'capitalist democracy' into an oxymoron."
This was widely denounced as both misogynistic and racist, but it wasn't: he is saying that the 1920s was the last time the crisis of bourgeois democracy might be have been resolved. This is pure Reaganite ideology, but like all ideology has a measure of truth. (It's worth noting that the Left agrees in a sense, but sees the failure of the German revolution, which also meant the failure of the October revolution, as the decisive moment.)
He recognizes the fatal contradiction at the heart of bourgeois society. Clearly. For him libertarianism is the answer that bourgeois society forbids itself because it holds itself to the promise of democracy. Each time the capitalist crisis emerges, Theil becomes anti-political, looks for a "new space for freedom," new avenues for the accumulation of capital. Cyberspace, outerspace, seasteading.
Post-2009 we saw Theil flirt with the Reactionary- or Dark-enlightenment, which while more reactionary than he's ever been nonetheless suggested a renewed desire for politics in the depths of the recession.
Theil remains revolutionary in the sense that he can claim to be in the tradition of Rousseau in the same sense Lenin, for example, could. That may be hard to recognize but it's there.
What is most interesting about Theil and Trump is that if you think of Theil as expressing intellectually the bourgeois ideology of the Reagan period (and he's pure late-80s vintage, no doubt), he has just signed on to work in the administration of the man who single-handedly ended the Reagan Coalition.
Appreciate your analysis defgeneric, though we probably don't see eye to eye.
In my view what you're calling Thiel's anti-political phrases are important. I know you see them as the spread of virus-capitalism, but I think without that kind of frontier building the world would be a much more boring place. I take it you're familiar with Patri Friedman's thesis. What did you think then of Balaji Srinivasan's Exit Ycombinator talk?
I know presently the anti-Trumpists are getting a lot of airtime with their talk of secession, but to be honest there is something much deeper beyond the current election fallout which is worth looking at. From a right perspective I have been wondering for a long time whether Silicon Valley's interests are ultimately orthogonal to Washington but appear to be similar in the present because they're competing for the same thing.
This is a strand of Rene Girard's philosophy, which Thiel is a big fan of (he knew Rene at Stanford I think), many of his ideas revolve around ideas of mimesis and scapegoating. Interestingly; he had a Girardian rationale for investing in Facebook. Never say reading philosophy doesn't pay off! I would love to have a photo of his library.
John Strange is very wrong about Thiel's activities being random. I was asked to write essay on Medium which I called "Peter and the Wolfe", which was an attempt to explain the deeper undercurrents around some of his recent decisions.
The main content of it was written before Trump got into power, so it makes it more interesting retroactively. If you recall, many people on HN were calling him mad, stupid, trying to get him kicked out of Ycombinator and Facebook's board etc. Here is the original comment:
I don't really see the spread of capitalism as a virus, and indeed none of the founding Marxists did either. While capital's inherent drive to expand is the core of most imperialist theories (and therefore "bad"), the accompanying spread of bourgeois ideology to the entire globe--and with it the social integration of the whole of humanity on scale which was previously unimaginable--is unquestionably a good thing.
So Theil's anti-political phases are interesting to me as a demonstration of how ideology and capital condition each other.
On Silicon Valley, the anti-political technocratic ideology it seems to be producing is a minor phenomenon. There may be something to the notion of bits vs. atoms as the "stuff" of production, but what gets obscured is that capital and the law of value rules here nonetheless.
On Girard, Theil's affinity with those ideas seems to me to be bound up with his struggle to reconcile his libertarianism with Christianity. My guess is that if he dropped the Christianity, the Girardian thought would fall away.
My main point is that Theil is a particularly good "personification of capital" and that if you drop the stupid anti-capitalist politics and see capital as neither good nor bad but simply the ruling principle of the world, then it can explain a lot.
> I don't really see the spread of capitalism as a virus, and indeed none of the founding Marxists did either. While capital's inherent drive to expand is the core of most imperialist theories (and therefore "bad"), the accompanying spread of bourgeois ideology to the entire globe--and with it the social integration of the whole of humanity on scale which was previously unimaginable--is unquestionably a good thing.
Interesting. I wasn't expecting that. I'm sure you're familiar with self described communists who identify with Agent Smith's description of humankind in the Matrix, so you know where I got that impression from.
> On Silicon Valley, the anti-political technocratic ideology it seems to be producing is a minor phenomenon. There may be something to the notion of bits vs. atoms as the "stuff" of production, but what gets obscured is that capital and the law of value rules here nonetheless.
We may mean different things by anti-political. I didn't see Thiel's exploration of unusual fringe ideas as being the complete rejection of all politics, but an attempt at making a new kind of politics through technology. So here anti-political meant 'outside of the mainstream' for me. Out of the world of Washington, not out of the broader world of political philosophy.
Along the same lines I think SV ultimately is competing with Washington. An old form of politics vs a new form, similar to the competition of monarchy and democracy.
I think it is in a nascent stage yet, I just think we're being fed the idea their interests are parallel merely because they have converging interests, and I believe that to be a very big mistake because of Girard's ideas about mimesis, namely conflict is more likely, not less likely, because of similarity.
I agree with you though, the same economical laws are ruling still despite this talk of a new economical world order from Wired. It is remarkable as Thiel has been pointing out, just how few new forms of wealth have been created ex-computation in the past few decades. There is a terrific amount of talking but little impact and often the Ted-Talk-People portion of the middle class becomes intensely uncomfortable when this is pointed out to them.
> On Girard, Theil's affinity with those ideas seems to me to be bound up with his struggle to reconcile his libertarianism with Christianity. My guess is that if he dropped the Christianity, the Girardian thought would fall away.
I believe Thiel has noted of himself before, that he likes to have (and looks for in others) paradoxical or perhaps contradictory ideas. I think he believes there is some kind of gap between oppositional ideas that either spits off new thoughts or at least keeps you on your toes.
> My main point is that Theil is a particularly good "personification of capital" and that if you drop the stupid anti-capitalist politics and see capital as neither good nor bad but simply the ruling principle of the world, then it can explain a lot.
I think you overestimate the significance of random asshats with some 80s BA in philosophy from Stanford. He somehow came to decent amounts of money, that's about all there is to say about Thiel's intellectual achievements. Nothing against the fact that an ordinary businessman's can have various more or less well-argued world views, but comparing him to Rousseau or Lenin is, frankly speaking, ridiculous.
I agree he is of minor significance compared to Rousseau or Lenin. I mentioned those two in particular because it's not often recognized how Lenin consciously thought of himself as fulfilling the French Revolution as a Rousseauian. Theil's American libertarianism is also indebted to that tradition in a particular way. The ideological kinship is worth pointing out because it's somewhat provocative and unexpected.
I don't think many of Thiel's detractors denied that he was buying himself this seat at the table. In fact, many of us were animated by exactly that concern.
Disagreeing with each other's views on the economy, international relations, even the environment is good for the country. We need different points of view on important issues.
But using race baiting to gain political power crosses a line that should never be crossed. He should not be helping to legitimize this.
I very much dislike Trump and would never vote for the man. Both sides use race baiting. Spurious use of the word "racist" against those who dislike government intervention and entitlements has basicly denuded the term of its once-quite-considerable power. They called Bush racist, wasn't true. They called Romney racist, a laughable claim. They called Trump racist and maybe this time there're right, but what does "racist" even mean again?
Agreed. But if you call anyone who disagrees with you on economic policy a racist and sexist, it opens the door for an actual racist and sexist to get in.
Which is not the case right now. So yes the president elect of the US is racist and sexist and a % of his supporters are openly racist and/or sexist people.
Being opposed to urban people getting entitlements, but in favor of rural people getting entitlements, is approximately racist, when you factor in demographics.
At this point, I'm not even sure what's more racist: calling a group of people "lazy and unintelligent", or molly-coddling a group of people because "they need special attention".
The way the left treats minorities is pretty patronizing, to be frank.
I am not sure what molly-coddling means in this context, but as a single data point you can look at the platform page of a minority advocacy group: [0]. The actual low-level details of many of the policies (if not the headlines) share a lot in common with Sanders' platform, for instance.
I'd like to think that, for the most part, trying to address a societal problem like [1] is better than denying that any action is needed, even if the increased visibility causes strife—[2] is of interest here—or we don't get it right the first time. It's hard to discuss because many Americans begin on vastly different pages with vastly different experiences.
When you start calling every Trump supporter a race baiter, bigot, or racist without understanding their viewpoint, it's time to stop using those words and take a look in the mirror.
Disagreement is one thing. Outright blindness to issues that could destroy humanity, and that are not in question, such as global warming, are something else entirely. But it is too late to fret over that - what is important now is supporting those people who CAN work with Trump to make better decisions. So whether you like Trump or Thiel or think they are dimwits, we'll get a better result by helping them vs. bitching about things on the internet.
(In two years, this cycle starts all over again. Save your energies for that time.)
Could you point out anywhere that Peter supports bigotry? Or even, a single crazy statement in Peter's speech? (I wouldn't defend Trump. I'm defending Peter, who I respect a lot).
The speech runs from 2:40 to 15:50, and can be watched in 7 minutes if you change speed to 2x.
(Thomas, I respect you a lot too. I've never seen or known Peter to do anything like you describe. I posted this video because it helped me understand his position on the election).
How is this a coherent argument? "Here is an individual moment from someone's life. Use it to prove they're bigoted."
How about we cite other moments in his life? Like the (multiple!) Stanford peers he had who recounted his support for apartheid, or the book he wrote about the evils of diversity, or the blog post he wrote for Cato in 2009 lamenting that women had obtained the right to vote? How about getting up on stage and calling a person who repeatedly said that Muslims citizens of the United States should be forced to register themselves --- at their mosques or at lots of other places, we'll figure it out! --- the most honest candidate in the race?
There's a point at which the challenges you choose to raise cross a line into gaslighting --- who are you going to believe, Thiel or your own lying eyes? --- and while you haven't crossed it, writing in a tone that suggests it's unreasonable to question Thiel's inclusiveness definitely brings you right up to it.
> or the blog post he wrote for Cato in 2009 lamenting that women had obtained the right to vote?
He said no such thing in that article[1]. I have no idea about the rest, or about Thiel in general, but I did read the article. Your statement is as bad and inaccurate as any one-liner soundbite on right wing media.
The section in question (emphasis mine):
As one fast-forwards to 2009, the prospects for a
*libertarian politics* appear grim indeed. Exhibit A
is a financial crisis caused by too much debt and
leverage, facilitated by a government that insured
against all sorts of moral hazards — and we know that
the response to this crisis involves way more debt and
leverage, and way more government. Those who have
argued for free markets have been screaming into a
hurricane. The events of recent months shatter any
remaining hopes of *politically minded* libertarians.
For those of us who are libertarian in 2009, our
education culminates with the knowledge that the
broader education of the body politic has become a
fool’s errand.
Indeed, even more pessimistically, the trend has been
going the wrong way for a long time. To return to
finance, the last economic depression in the United
States that did not result in massive government
intervention was the collapse of 1920–21. It was sharp
but short, and entailed the sort of Schumpeterian
“creative destruction” that could lead to a real boom.
The decade that followed — the roaring 1920s — was so
strong that historians have forgotten the depression
that started it. The 1920s were the last decade in
American history during which one could be genuinely
optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast
increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of
the franchise to women — two constituencies that are
notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the
notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.
He's talking about the poor receptivity he (and apparently other libertarians?) believe those groups have to libertarian ideals, specifically of getting them to vote for libertarian policies; he's not lamenting their existence per se.
Indeed, there's a follow-up on this exact topic posted at the bottom of the article:
It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will
be taken away or that this would solve the political
problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of
people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope
that voting will make things better.
And finally:
I believe that politics is way too intense. That’s why
I’m a libertarian. Politics gets people angry, destroys
relationships, and polarizes peoples’ vision: the world
is us versus them; good people versus the other.
He may be naive or disillusioned or depressed or whatever, but your misleading soundbite perfectly illustrated his point.
"They(Mexicans) are rapists and murderers" Take a look[1] you may have been stranded on an Island the last 2 years and perhaps you did not hear what Trump have said.
Now, not all Trump supporters are racists (maybe Thiel isn't? who knows!), but all of them are telling us implicitly that racism and bigotry are not deal breakers.
Trump said that illegal immigrants are "rapists and murderers and some good people", "not their best people". You can disagree strongly with Trump's claims about what motivates illegal immigration, but Trump's stated view is not racist: he discriminated between two groups within a single race, and did not distinguish between races.
The alt-right gained most of it's momentum during Trump's campaign. You think that's a coincidence? And this, "it's a nationality not a race' is hardly a good reason to denigrate an entire people.
People keep saying he denigrated all mexicans... He didn't, he denigrated illegal immigrants. Unless you are implying all Mexicans are illegal immigrants?
I don't even like trump but this kind of nonsense makes me defend him.
That's not because the judge is Mexican, that's because the judge is human and a huge propaganda machine was working against Trump telling everyone that he hates the judges culture.
I don't know how impartial I would be if i thought I was ruling against a hardcore racist who hates my culture.
Well, I hope you're not a Judge then, eh? ;-) (You're supposed to recuse yourself in a situation like that, you know.)
Even if he was trying to impugn human nature and not Mexicans, he's still saying that race trumps Justice (in the person of the Judge.) That's not the values I want my President to treat as normal, because it effectively promotes racialism.
Certainly his election has already emboldened racists to make physical and verbal attacks across the country. Do I care if he's really racist or not?
Variations of that statement are commonly being written or voiced in the mainstream media post election. So apparently it does do well. Van Jones, on national TV, called it "whitelash" and openly described Trump's election as a racist response to Obama's Presidency. The post election has been one mainstream media tirade after another about the racist white voters.
Corrected now, unless I didn't hear right when he refers to Mexico sending people over and then "they are rapists" perhaps his subject changed and he was referring to Aliens?
He is, at least technically, making a more sophisticated argument. I'll rephrase it to make that reading clear:
"Like all countries, Mexico has both great people and rapists/murderers. Unfortunately, the latter group is overrepresented among those illegally in this country."
That's (technically) the point he's making, and it's (technically) not racist.
It's called dog-whistle politics. It's subtle, so you have to listen hard, but here it is: "To the people who are used to influencing our choice of leaders, ..." and he goes on to describe "wealthy" and "successful" types of people. Basically he's talking "to" and "about" people like himself, namely, white men. The man is a bigot, and like all modern bigots, he hides (and shows) his bigotry in coded language like this.
edit: just to clarify, "people who are used to influencing our choice of leaders", I am interpreting in the context of voting rights in the United States, which of course were originally denied to everyone but white men. So those are the ones who are "used to it."
Do you then also suggest that those who called to vote for HRC support the destruction of government data, lying under oath, and support the unlawful invasion of Iraq?
He supports a Presidency which built its campaign, to a large extent, on abject racism and outright sexism. A ticket whose VP supports electro-shocking gay teens to turn them straight.
How, exactly, do you give such people $1.25 million and join their team without at least implicitly endorsing such views?
Ironically, bigotry is defined as "intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself". I'm not defending Trump but it's fairly obvious to any non-partisan that the left wing is just as guilty of this.
Call me when your American Left Wing creates a system where Christians, Republicans and Libertarians are forbidden to dine in restaurants because of their identity, or are prevented from using restrooms, or are afraid to call the police should they be victims of crime, because they expect that the police will either make things worse or at best not take their experience seriously.
"just as guilty" is a false equivalence. The Left has much to answer for certainly; but the claim that there is somehow comparable bigotry in both sides of the political spectrum is not remotely credible.
Bigotry is a state of mind, not a manifestation. I'm not arguing against the existence and dominance of a WASP authoritarian power structure. My point is that accusing someone of being a "bigot" without providing a valid argument for what constitutes that label is no more compelling than any other ad-hominem. All it does is reduce social justice to an empty virtue signaling buzzword that fails to evoke the struggle and pain behind those victims of discrimination that you fight to protect. You will never get your message across to Trump supporters if you continue to lump them all into a basket of deplorables that is beneath contempt and not even worth a thoughtful interaction. Modern liberals, particularly the "social justice warriors", aren't helping progressive causes with their dogmatic approach to political discourse. They could all benefit from reading Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power [1].
Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam met with the KKK in 1961 despite mutual hostility that would never be ameliorated [2]. In 2016, your entire career can be ruined simply for holding the "wrong" opinion. Boy how things have changed.
Yes, but that was before the realignment when the racist white southern conservative faction of the Democratic Party, that had been it's core prior to the New Deal Coalition, abandoned the party over Johnson's support of civil rights and became the base of the Republican Party.
I'm aware of that - but if we have to look over 50 years in the past to try to back up the claim that "the left and right are equally bigotted", then we should really just admit that claim doesn't have a factual basis at the time it was made.
"hold(s) different opinions from oneself" isn't the only characteristic of Nazis, they have other attributes which do justify not tolerating them.
But yes, if it wasn't those attributes, you could still "tolerate" them, in the sense of allowing their opinions to be heard. You don't have to agree. You can even explicitly argue with them.
That is the classic definition, but the liberal definition of "bigotry" is more like "intolerance/hostility/oppression to those who have different skin/gender/lifestyles/culture/etc (all the protected class stuff)"
"hold different opinions from oneself" is subjectively tolerance/intolerance. This table exploits word games, because the first column is "in/tolerant to hearing the opions of", and the second is "holds opinions I believe to be exclusive to a special sub-community of society".
You cannot correctly come to a decision about the latter, without listening, which requires the former.
Are you familiar with "point-free style"? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_programming) The above crude table should be read as given: point-free. I don't care about the subject of [in]tolerance even slightly (opinions, smells, beliefs, quasi-scientific theories, what-have-you).
If you are tolerant I will tolerate you, if you are intolerant go screw.
racism and views on climate change are opinions, what else could they be? climate change is a complex and speculative topic that no one understands completely. no one has a climatechangeometer.
HN being full of sociopaths is well known. Being apologists for Thiel's odiousness is a new low.
The man clearly states what he means, trying to 'clarify what he exactly means' is convuluted apologism and revisonism. This is like saying slave trade is wrong but you support it. Ok.
If you agree with his views defend them on the platform of reason.
Let's not get carried away here. Trump has not won because he is racist, nobody now thinks racism is ok. He has won because of the disenchantment with the establishment and his opposite number being widely perceived as a crook.
If you think minorities and women are somehow different from you it will appear as bigotry unless you can offer some evidence or reason beyond generalising entire sections of humanity for some self serving and dubious cause.
Left-wing mccarthyism is as bad as right-wing mccarthyism. People should be able to support one of the two candidates without having to stand up to so much shaming in SV circles. Given the binary choice there may be multiple reasons to pick Trump over Clinton even if you disagree with him on a lot of issues.
Words mean things. McCarthyism was a movement that questioned the citizenship of people who supported socialism, and which demanded of the citizenry that they root out, report, and maintain blacklists of people who weren't stalwart supporters of that effort. McCarthyism had the force of a government behind it.
What you're seeing here isn't an organized movement to find and punish Thiel-supporters. It's people lamenting that other people continue to do business with one specific person, who is being singled out for his own speech and actions. It's an embryonic boycott movement. Boycotts --- something far more specific, pointed, and impactful than what we're seeing in threads like this --- are not "McCarthyism".
We should value tolerance towards minority (in our circles) opinions. Unless you believe half of the country are bigots, you would conclude many people who voted for Trump did so reluctantly and despite all the stupid things he said, and not thanks to them. They prioritized his economic policies or felt Clinton is too indebted to the current establishment to be able to change anything. I know some people who did that and I respect their opinion.
Regarding difference between McCarthyism having government support behind and our media/social media rage not, I am worried that popular opinions become policies in a democracy. If on both ends of the political spectrum people stop respecting each other completely, it won't end well.
I don't think the definition of "McCarthyism" is as narrow as you define it. I used that word because I though the analogy was appropriate and illustrated well what I was trying to express. Accepted definitions do not tie it to the use of government force, see e.g. "the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism." from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/mccarthyism?s=t
Words mean things. In the same way that people aren't being "lynched" when dozens of other people berate them online, calls to divest from bigots and their enablers don't constitute "McCarthyism".
Words mean different things depending on the context. And analogy and hyperbole are valid tools for expressing ideas. Now "lynching" would definitely be a bad analogy and way too much hyperbole, but "mccarthyism" was appropriate to illustrate what I was trying to say. At the time people lost ability to be employed because of their political views. You seem to be calling for boycotting anyone who voted or supported Trump in this election because they are bigots. And that is a logical jump I cannot agree with as I tried to explain above. Clearly some people voted for him because maintaining status quo was less acceptable than getting over the things he said. I do think that we would have to get off the high horse of moral superiority and try to understand what happened if we want to avoid surprises like this in the future.
"Given the binary choice there may be multiple reasons to pick Trump over Clinton even if you disagree with him on a lot of issues."
If you're willing to see past the proud racism and misogyny, then sure. If you're willing to see past the blatant disregard for objective facts, then sure. I, for one, would vote for pretty much anyone else before supporting that.
This thread is sad. We are ALL Americans. President-elect Trump is OUR president. You know how we can make this next four years a success for all of us, realize the Constitution sets out a process for how we elect our leaders. Go read it. No really, now many of the people burning flags, talking about "end of days" BS, and other nonsense have ever read the Constitution? Let alone swore an oath to defend it? Yeah. As I suspected.
Stop the hate online. Stop the hate in the streets. Stop talking about states leaving the union (not going to happen). Stop judging people for their choice--voting freedom is sacred. Many have died defending it. Regardless of how you voted get behind the President of the United States of America. America is still the greatest nation the world has ever known. If we all work together and stop this hate, America will be become even better.
Go tell that to the people scrawling white power slogans, painting swastikas, putting up signs for "colored" drinking fountains, wearing blackface, calling people "niggers", etc.
> voting freedom is sacred
No, your right to vote is enshrined in the constitution, but you have no right not to be judged a horrible human being for your choice.
That is one way of looking at it. But the hate is already being spread and has been spread by our new president's campaign. For non-white people his election is a direct threat against their well-being.
If the anti-trump protesters are being sore losers then the KKK are being sore winners.
Given the choice between Thiel (favors reconstitution of our political establishment and believes in science and technology) and the rest of the Trump hangers-on (are ambivalent towards reconstitution of the establishment and are anti-science), this is a decent outcome.
Not believing in a particular scientific viewpoint does not mean one does not believe in science. Most of the great scientific discoveries were at one point contrary to the collective scientific wisdom, e.g. heliocentricity, evolution, quantum mechanics, relativity.
*Note: I'm not equating a lack of belief in AGW with relativity.
...and when presented with the weight of evidence, we accept reality and start to account for it. For instance, when we noticed that our refrigerants were busting a hole in our house, with strong political will we stopped making them, and today the ozone layer is recovering.
Imagine if Reagan had torpedoed the Montreal Protocol. That's what we're talking about here.
I'm afraid what Theil wants is a reconstitution of the Reagan Coalition, which was resoundingly defeated in the primary this year.
That would be a complete waste of time, especially considering its opposite, the New Left, will die along with it. Please let's kill two birds with one Trump and move past the neoliberal era.
I come to HN because of the high level of intelligent conversation.
This article, and ever more sadly so the comments herein, are a huge disappointment.
Trump is the non-establishment candidate the left asks for from Republicans every presidential election. Hillary is, at the very least, the establishment candidate the left profess to despise.
I don't think the left ever widely professed a desire for a non-establishment candidate from the right.
They were much more worried about how the Republican party has veered right over the years. This has led them to adopt extremist views such as branding entire ethnic groups as dangerous, and rolling out laws that inhibit the ability of minorities to vote.
These are just some of the worries that the left in America has with the Republican party.
Interesting that the moderators found it important to remove the "YC partner" part from the submission. It also seems the submission is getting less exposure than other submissions even though it's newer and has more upvotes.
For example this submission has 349 points and was submitted 6 hours ago and has rank 17 while "Halite: An AI Programming Challenge" has 158 points and was submitted 12 hours ago and is rank 16. The Leonard Cohen post has just a bit more upvotes and was submitted also 6 hours ago and is rank 2. "Island generator was also submitted at the same time and with just barely over 100 upvotes is rank 7.
Can some mod please give some insight into this? I'm gonna give HN the benefit of the doubt, probably some invisible factors playing into it but the ranking plus the editing could look a bit like the story is getting burried.
Is there a kind of "political correctness" that refuses the acknowledgment of facts and likelihoods that sound similar to irrational dismissal? Does that kind prevent people from hearing the following things which I think most people would agree to be true?
-Donald Trump says he wants to completely deregulate the banking industry, which will most likely, in the long term, lead to a crisis on par with or greater than the last banking crisis in 2008. That will probably harm most YC companies in just about every sector, and will negatively influence the value of YC's holdings.
-Donald Trump and Paul Ryan plan to strip approximately 20 million people of health insurance, and millions more of food stamps, decimating our already weak safety net for the poor. He will do more harm to the poor and disadvantaged in his first six months than YC's non-profit efforts have ever achieved and maybe will ever achieve, probably by orders of magnitude.
-Donald Trump is part of a movement to dismantle pluralism in the United States, including the marginalization of immigrants and their descendants. He has stated, and his followers are now performing, an antipathy toward people from other countries, and views their economic success as directly opposed to the success of white Americans. YC is a network that includes many diverse people of all backgrounds, including many immigrants. These people will be persecuted by Trumps followers and oppressed by his government.
-Donald Trump has appointed a "climate skeptic," which means, "dangersous liar," to head the Environmental Protection Agency Transition. He has already sent out many other signals that he intends to cease any US efforts to combat Global Warming, which will have the effect of destabilizing the various international agreements that might have ameliorated its effects. It currently seems likely that Trump will single-handedly prevent the world from achieving a viable response to this threat for another four years. This gravely threatens the entire world, and will cause rippling suffering around the world. Every person who interacts with Y Combinator and their descendants will be unambiguously worse off because of this.
YC should not reject Thiel because "he holds opposing political beliefs." YC should reject Thiel, cut off all relationship with him, publicly condemn him, because he has joined an organization, the Donald Trump Administration, which has stated its intentions to do massive harm to YC and the people of the world. If YC continues its relationship with Thiel, if it fails to acknowledge its association with him as a black mark on its standing among people of conscience, and if it does not muster all of its leverage, economic and otherwise, in the fight to curtail the power of Thiel's organization (The Trump Administration), than they are part of a problem that should terrify anyone who prefers economic growth, the reduction of human suffering, political freedom and the viability of earth as a home for humanity.
Now is a test for many people and institutions in American life. YC doesn't have many days left before it has failed.
"Donald Trump and Paul Ryan plan to strip approximately 20 million people of health insurance, "
No - they said they are going to repeal and replace Obamacare with something else. That does not mean they are going to strip people of their health insurance.
"Donald Trump is part of a movement to dismantle pluralism in the United States, including the marginalization of immigrants and their descendants"
This is a lie. Trump has consistently supported all legal immigrants, and voiced concern against those entering the country illegally. Again - your position misrepresents reality and paints anyone who is against illegal immigration to be against all immigrants, and a 'racist' etc..
As a non-Trump supporter, you should easily be able to win someone like me over - but you can't when you mix in so much hyperbole.
It's comments like this that basically made me stop supporting progressive causes about 10 years ago, even though in general, I do support a lot of it ... I never give them the benefit of the doubt anymore.
> Trump has consistently supported all legal immigrants
Trump confirmed his own opposition to people of Mexican descent when he said judge Gonzalo Curiel had a conflict of interest.
He said that Curiel, who is descended from legal Mexican immigrants, could not rule fairly on a Trump trial, because Trump wanted to build a wall on the Mexican border.
Note that Trump did not claim that Curiel was an illegal immigrant, or that his predecessor were illegal immigrants. It was Mexican heritage generally that Trump claimed caused the conflict of interest.
And Trump of course has repeatedly spoken in favor of banning all Muslims from coming into the country, even legal immigrants.
These are just off the top of my head; there are many more examples. If you won't be convinced, that's on you.
I'm the furthest thing from a Trump supporter, but it is a significant leap to take his believe that a judge with Mexican heritage would be biased against him due to his anti-Mexican agenda, and turn that into an opposition of all people of Mexican descent. Trump has said some despicable things, but saying that a person of Mexican descent might be biased against him because he's basically a dick to Mexico seems reasonably logical. Now, claiming that that's grounds for the judge to recuse himself is quite a stretch, but I don't personally see it as racist. I also think that stretching to label questionable things as racist is counter-productive; it dilutes the meaning, and makes it more difficult to call out the extreme, blatant racism that's going elsewhere.
American pluralism, which the GP post was talking about, is the belief that people of many backgrounds can come together as equals and build a society together. Trump's focus on the Mexican heritage of an American judge (who was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA BTW) is a textbook attack on that idea.
I was responding specifically to this line: "Trump confirmed his own opposition to people of Mexican descent when he said judge Gonzalo Curiel had a conflict of interest."
I don't believe that particular incident is strong evidence that Trump opposes people of Mexican descent in general. I can understand his belief that a person of Mexican descent would not like him. I don't like him myself, nor do I agree with any of his stated positions on immigration or immigrants. I expect that if my parents were from Mexico, I might feel even more strongly that way, which is essentially what he suggested. (Again, I don't agree that it constitutes a conflict of interest! Just that the idea that a person descended from Mexican immigrants would likely not be a fan of his is not unreasonable.)
What snowwrestler says: Trump says an American Judge, whose job it is to be impartial and judge things, can't do his job because he's Mexican-American. That's messed up.
Sure, we can understand if the Judge has some personal feelings, but we also understand that he's going to set them aside and be impartial in his judgement because he's been made a JUDGE! We presume that the folks who gave him that authority did so because they thought and felt that he would be good at it. (And not "despite being a Mexican"!!)
Trump's B.S. undermines the whole concept of impartial Justice. It drives a wedge into the fundamental values of our government. And it's pretty racist against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. It was a hell of a thing to say when he was just the joke candidate, and it's all the more dismaying now that he's the Joke President.
>What snowwrestler says: Trump says an American Judge, whose job it is to be impartial and judge things, can't do his job because he's Mexican-American. That's messed up.
Reality is a bit more nuanced than that.
A Mexican-American judge who is affiliated with `La Raza` [0] and is sympathetic to illegal immigrants (from Mexico) ruling on a case against an individual who is not sympathetic to illegal immigrants. The keyword I'm emphasizing because people conveniently leave it out is: illegal. It makes a drastic difference when speaking about immigration. Illegal immigration is not the same.
>The HNBA sometimes condemns rhetoric that it perceives as "divisive and racist" and aimed at immigrants. For example, in response to Donald Trump's comments regarding illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States, and Trump's derogatory remarks about some of those immigrants, the group's president issued a press release in July 2015 calling for a boycott of all Donald Trump-owned businesses.
I agree with everything you've written here except for the one italicized sentence. I think we fundamentally agree on Trump's character, and are basically having a discussion about semantics at this point. However, I do feel it can be a useful discussion. The people who write the N word and "Trump" all over someone's car are clearly racist. The people who say, "We don't want those people in our town. It's not a race thing, it's just that they're using up all the resources, and ruining the culture, and when I drive by the playground now, there aren't even any white kids there anymore," are probably racist, but legitimately don't believe they are. Trump may well be racist, but mostly he's opportunistic and self-centered, and in my opinion that's what his comment about the judge showed.
The problem is, calling that comment racist cheapens the condemnation of the writing-on-car guy. It also causes the second group to write you off as out of touch, ensuring they won't listen to anything else you say on the matter. Even calling that second group racist, while true, is most likely counter-productive. Most people with racist (or sexist, or homophobic..) beliefs honestly believe they don't have "any problem with those people", so labeling them in that way again just shuts down the dialog, and if anything hardens their views. And what ultimately matters is that people treat each other decently, so we need to choose both actions and language that are most likely to encourage that.
I get what you're saying. It's not constructive to simply shout "racist!" at someone and run away. (Although I did just that to "masondixon" elsewhere in this thread, but I stand by that: dude is a looney. Long experience has taught me not to waste time with a true-blue freakazoid like that.)
For communicating with normal everyday folks who don't even know they're racist you do indeed have to use a light touch if you want to get through to them. I totally agree with that and do my best to practice it.
------
As for whether or not the statements he made about the Judge indicate strongly ("big league") that Trump is racist (however latent or unconscious) I think we have to agree to disagree. For me, and a lot of folks, it was disgusting hearing something like that from a presidential candidate. I'm not surprised so many people are saying today that his election proves that middle America is racist. I've heard his election called "revenge for eight years of <African-American> president"! In any event, racists are having a field day.
Trump's argument was that a fully qualified, experienced, American citizen judge can't participate in civil society--can't do his civil service job properly--simply because his parents were Mexican.
It's un-American and wrong. I'm going to speak out about things like this, and everyone reading this comment should do so as well.
Each of us, every American citizen, is personally responsible for delivering a society that fulfills our ideals. No one else is going to do it for us.
I agree with this statement as well. I would suggest though, that it's being strawman'ed. Let's "steelman" the argument just as we try to do here on HN. For example, this statement is a strawman: "Trump said that a judge is inherently biased just because his parents are Mexican." The steelman would be something like, "Trump claimed that a judge had a conflict of interest against him. The judge was born in America, but has Mexican parents, which Trump believes could cause him to have a bias due to Trump's anti-Mexican policy proposals, such as the border wall."
Should he be calling the judge's ability to do his job into question? I don't think so, no. But let's argue against what he actually said - in fact, go even further than that and interpret it in the most reasonable way possible - because it's more likely to result in useful discussion among people of differing opinions.
There are generations of families --- literally millions of people --- that are linked together through people who are in the US "illegally". People were brought here as children and have known no other life. People who were born in this country and are unassailably citizens, deserving of all the protections previous generations of Americans died on beaches to defend for them, whose parents were brought here illegally as children.
Do not casually dismiss these people by appealing to "legal immigration". The Obama Administration had to fight hard to secure continued residency for some of these children, and Trump's 100 Day Plan includes a pledge to revoke that security.
This is a real concern deserving your careful consideration. It's not a sound bite. You can disagree, but if you're disagreeing that we should be concerned about a pledge to rend families apart, you owe a more careful and honest articulation of your disagreement than you gave here.
Why are you scare quoting "illegally"? They are here in violation of the law. If you don't believe in controlled immigration, just state that up front rather than trying to hide behind an appeal to emotion via stories of tearing families apart.
Your argument seems to be either that long time violators of a law should gain immunity to the law; or that we should grant citizenship to anyone who enters the country. Which is it?
Because it is the only case in which "illegal" refers to a status rather than an action, as if the very act of existing in the United States without correct documentation was an affront against justice.
This is a very un-American view of how the law works, and so the scare quotes are merited.
> Because it is the only case in which "illegal" refers to a status rather than an action [..] a very un-American view of how the law works
That's because the illegal action consists of being in a location where you have no right to be. And it's not, in fact, the only case. Compare it to its close relative, trespassing:
An "illegal resident" is someone living in a country of which they have neither citizenship nor visa.
An "illegal occupant" is someone living in a building of which they have neither possession nor tenancy.
It seems rather straightforward to me. Whether such a view is "un-American" or not I legitimately do not know, not being an American myself. Though I can say that that word doesn't have the proudest of histories, to put it mildly.
Maciej missed the point I was making, but I'm not going to let the conversation continue to miss it.
No. There are young people in the United States who are citizens of this country by right. Children born in the US are citizens. They are not illegal immigrants. There are families that consist overwhelmingly of citizens who happen to have in the fabric of their families people who are here without a visa.
Those people aren't causing problems. In fact: they are a benefit to our economy --- according to the overwhelming consensus of economists both left and right.
Trump proposes to hunt those people down and deport them, solely to satiate the race-tinged fears of people who Trump himself has helped impoverish.
> No. There are young people in the United States who are citizens of this country by right. Children born in the US are citizens. They are not illegal immigrants.
Yes, of course, but those are definitely not the people I was talking about. If someone is referring to legal citizens as illegal immigrants, that's wrong and they should stop.
As for the rest of your comment, I will politely decline to respond. I wasn't trying to start a discussion over what would be a fair or sensible immigration policy - that could never fit inside a HN thread. I was only objecting to idlewords's assertion that it is inherently wrong to describe someone as "illegal".
They will be harmed by their parents' decision to break the law. The same thing would happen if their parents violated any other law. Why would this be different?
"The illegal entry of non-nationals into the United States is a misdemeanor according to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which prohibits non-nationals from entering or attempting to enter the United States at any time or place which has not been designated by an immigration officer, and also prohibits non-nationals from eluding inspection by immigration officers"
Even though it's nice to know the specifics, really, it's absurd.
A nation will not exist unless in the 21st century unless it manages its borders reasonably.
A nation will not exist in the 21st century unless its demographics support its citizenry. Our population is aging, with insufficient service sector workers just to provide labor for the next generation of retirees, let alone fund their public pensions.
There's a term for the 21st Century nations in Europe that are especially good at enforcing their own borders: "demographic crisis".
Has importing an ethnically distinct underclass to perform labor & service jobs to fund the retirement of an aging population ever actually worked out well anywhere?
I'm Irish. Our immigration story in the US worked out pretty well.
You're the one bringing the term "underclass" into the discussion. I'm a Democrat: I think what we need is a path to citizenship for people who have proven themselves productive members of our society.
What I don't see is a rebuttal to my argument, which is that demography strongly suggests immigration is a net economic benefit to the country.
> Our immigration story in the US worked out pretty well.
There are a great many accomplished, upstanding US citizens of Irish descent today, but let's not forget that mass Irish immigration also brought machine politics & race riots to the USA in the short-to-medium term.
"Underclass" isn't meant as a moral judgment, I'm just talking about the people who work low-wage, low-prestige jobs with little job security. The USA already has fairly bad ethnic stratification of income; I don't want us to turn into Brazil or Mexico in that regard.
As a moral or practical matter, I don't think deporting families is a good idea. I do think we have to find a way to stop digging a hole. Let the people who are here now assimilate - it's harder now, with modern communication and transportation technology, because it's so much easier to live in an enclave. Find ways to encourage people who are already here to have more kids if there is a concern about future workers.
Thanks - I probably read a headline somewhere that entering the US illegally is not a felony and did not consider that it could still be a crime - a misdemeanour as you said.
> No - they said they are going to repeal and replace Obamacare with something else. That does not mean they are going to strip people of their health insurance.
The only "something else" that has been mentioned thus far is the utterly inadequate notion of savings accounts. If Donald Trump manages to produce the magical pony that provides affordable health care for individuals regardless of pre-existing conditions while not requiring an individual mandate or bankrupting the health insurance industry, then I'll believe he actually is a genius.
So if Trump's problem is only with illegal immigrants, I'm sure he and his supporters would be more than happy to relax immigration policy and regularize the illegal immigrants that are already in the U.S., thus solving the issue?
If someone steals money from you, you don't gift it to them to stop them from being a thief. The illegal immigrants that are here should have to go through the same process as the rest of us immigrants. Otherwise it's just moral hazard disincentivizing immigrants from following the legal process.
I was talking with a Chinese coworker who had the same objection: He had gone through the arduous proper channels to immigrate, and wondered why the folks who came here illegally should be granted special favor. It seems unfair to him.
I pointed out that many of the people here now as "illegal immigrants" are an indispensable part of our society and economy. They are de facto citizens, denied the full benefits of citizenship. We can't throw them out because our economy would tank. The options are to leave them in a twilight class or legitimize them.
I definitely think that people coming here should do so legally. I'm not sure what to do about "the Mexican Problem" (to describe it in 18th century terms.)
That would be awesome, if it was actually possible. The reason it is not done is that suddenly it would become much more difficult for Americans to get high paying jobs. H1B's lottery system is infuriating for those who go through it, but it is quite difficult to exploit deterministically.
Who would you prefer coming to the US? 50000 semiskilled workers from TCS/Infosys/etc, or 50000 extremely talented engineers that will be no-brainer hires for any company every year?
-Donald Trump has appointed a "climate skeptic," which means, "dangersous liar," to head the Environmental Protection Agency. He has already sent out many other signals that he intends to cease any US efforts to combat Global Warming, which will have the effect of destabilizing the various international agreements that might have ameliorated its effects. It currently seems likely that Trump will single-handedly prevent the world from achieving a viable response to this threat for another four years.
The president does not appoint cabinet level officials, the president nominates them and they are approved by Congress.
And there hasn't been a formal nomination, just a floating of the name.
Anyway, the point is that everyone who votes to approve the various cabinet officials should be held responsible for the things that follow, not just the president.
It seems that if you oppose an elected government, as in "muster all of its leverage, economic and otherwise, in the fight to curtail the power of Thiel's organization (The Trump Administration)", you're opposing democracy.
Organised protest is a right. You can accept the result of an election, and then fight the elected government in court. Checks and balances and all that.
Nobody is forcing me to be friends with Peter Thiel.
This is a critique you could have lobbed at every protest movement in the history of the United States, from Women's Suffrage to the March On Washington to the Vietnam War. You can't possibly mean to say what your comment seems to say.
No. More people voted for Hillary Clinton. And the Electoral College is constitutionally enshrined to stop candidates like Trump. From wikipedia:
James Madison argued against "an interested and overbearing majority" and the "mischiefs of faction" in an electoral system. He defined a faction as "a number of citizens whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community."
Whether you respect the Electoral College or don't, Trump should not be the President. But given that he will be, we have an obligation to stand against him. And to shame those who refuse to stand against him and his administration. Sadly this appears to include YC and its leaders.
Yes, the Electoral College was designed to stop the populist candidate if they are deemed unfit for President. And if said system ends up electing Trump, shouldn't you revise your belief, rather than sticking with it?
The meme that more people is voting for Clinton is tired, and meaningless. You can't just assume with a different fundamental, the votes would have been the same: there are different campaigns, different voters. Even if you just look at the current votes, a popular vote system would have completely removed all third party candidates out, and I wouldn't be betting that most votes (around 3-4% of the votes) from Gary Johnson (libertarian candidate) going to Clinton.
He just said Trump will be President. You're rebutting an argument he didn't make. Nobody is obligated to support the President. That's why it's called "the loyal opposition".
> Whether you respect the Electoral College or don't, Trump should not be the President.
I was saying that this statement doesn't follow from his 2 previous paragraphs. On the other hand, if this was a personal statement against Trump (rather than a logical conclusion of the previous paragraphs), then my comment doesn't apply.
In other words, I just wanted to emphasize that I believe in the statement "if you respect the Electoral College, Trump should be the next President". That is independent to any opinion I have on Trump. It just seems to me that too many people are rallying against a system just based on their emotions. The electoral system has its issues, however voting Trump up this time isn't one of them.
The comment straightforwardly said Trump will be President. The commenter is not required to respect the outcome. I sure don't! Your comment did not, in fact, apply.
You would have to elaborate more, at the very least on why you think that's the case, and why Electoral College was put in place before we can have a substantial discussion.
Additionally reasoning would be needed like what is making the present so different that it would be anachronistic. This isn't the first time this situation happened (candidate with plurality of popular votes not becoming President). In fact this isn't even the most controversial one either: the first time this happened, Andrew Jackson even had plurality of Electoral College. The 2nd time in 1876 is also fair more controversial - the popular vote difference was larger, the electoral vote difference was 1, and the situation that leads to it was even worse. The time span between elections where it happens isn't even new (12 years in 1876 and 1888 vs 16 years in 2000 and now). Heck, in 1888 the main election topic was also about tariff policy, does that sound at all familiar?
"Democracy" isn't just some magical pixie dust that can solve all problems, it's a design with a lot of trade offs, and calling things "undemocratic" isn't much of an argument.
Anachronistic: the electoral college arose on account of a number of factors. Consider that the biggest challenger was Congress electing the President, which faces obvious flaws. One of the advantages suggested for the electoral college system was that the single-purpose entity would be less prone to the politics and intrigue of a standing body. Hamilton also argued that the distributed nature of the electoral college would insulate the decision-making process from potential outside influence. It was also seen as an advantage to build a firewall from one state to the next, so that issues in one state would not unduly influence the election. But there was also a measure of elitism to the electoral college, the idea that the political class had more information and greater faculties with which to make the difficult decision.
It's useful to note that Hamilton and Madison argued forcefully against states binding their electors to a single candidate. The assumption previously was that electors would be a respected local figure who could then deliberate thoughtfully, rather than being bound to a particular political party. Maine and Nebraska are the only states still living up to the framers' original intent.
Hair-brained: the previous discussion of the unexpected political effects of the electoral college should be enough to prove this point.
Undemocratic: this is a tough one, since as you pointed out, "democracy isn't some magical pixie dust." However, I think it's fair (at least when discussing the American political system), to situate our various institutions along an axis of democratic to republican. To the democratic end of the spectrum are institutions that provide a direct role for citizens in politics, such as caucuses, referenda, and (ostensibly) the presidency. To the republican end are the representative institutions. Given that the presidency was intended as and is best seen as the most democratic federal institution, it is unfortunate that the manner of election still has this one wrench, where the vast majority of citizens have zero practical impact on the result.
This would be fantastic...the closest of getting Elon Musk into the driver's seat. Mike Pence being a huge space advocate and Thiel wanting nothing more than technological progress to pick up speed, this is a very positive development.
I'm not the OP, but I was 16 when Obama formed his administration, and I was uninvolved in politics at the time. Does that disqualify me from tracking and critiquing the Trump Administration?
Whatever Trump might do policy-wise with regards to freedom of speech and our democracy, realize that Thiel literally sued a popular media company out of existence over things they wrote about him. I don't think this gets better soon.
"Bezos is about to learn that building a business by stealing tax dollars from local communities and using the profits to rig elections is no longer tolerated in our country. He'll be lucky to avoid jail... tax fraud pierces the corporate veil and he made a mortal enemy in Trump who never lets any bad deed go unpunished. If you have any amazon stock best sell it now."
Maybe there can be some seasteading experiment after all? I'd be really curious to see how it would play out. Seems like a crazy idea worth trying despite all the counterarguments I can think of simply to collect data/experience as it might be valuable for future "crazy" endeavors like populating a different planet.
He was asked "Why do you financially support so many anti-gay GOP politicians?" Which is exactly what you're wondering about. And lo, he answered:
"If I thought they were anti-gay, then I would not support them. I do not find myself fully on the side of any of our political leaders -- because none of them are fully on my side."
Reading some of his other stuff, this turns out to be a recurring theme: he's on board with approximately zero electable politicians, and kind of disgusted by the whole mess, so any viable political strategy will necessarily involve kissing a few toads. If you've been near a voting booth recently, you probably did the same.
(I admit that Trump is warty even by the standards of toads, but Hillary probably wouldn't have taken someone with Thiel's... mixed reputation.)
The amount of mis-quotation around Trumps alleged "racism and misogyny" means I'd like at least a few specifics along with any such claim, just to be clear what your level is.
I don't think there's a serious question here. I'm sorry if you don't feel like I'm engaging your argument; it may genuinely be thoughtful but just comes across as intentionally ignorant.
EDIT: I'm going to engage with this even though the premise of the request bothers me significantly.
Here is Trump announcing his candidacy, declaring Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers (but it's okay, he's sure there are some good people there, too): https://youtu.be/q_q61B-DyPk?t=7m57s
Just because he's gay doesn't mean he supports marriage equality. Given Thiel's political views I would guess that he thinks that the government shouldn't care about _anyone's_ marriage, gay or straight. So rather than fight for marriage equality for gay couples he'd fight for marriage deregulation for everyone, including straight couples (e.g. no special tax treatment, no special legal protections for spouses).
Just as an historical counterexample: Leonardo DaVinci was gay but tried to keep that fact away from the Church (very influential at the time), doing otherwise would have prevented him to access many books, and therefore would have stumped his contributions to humanity. And there is a chance some people at the time may have assumed it was all to retain money and power (which he had), but that's irrelevant in perspective.
If you're really in the power game, it's assumed that you accumulate enough blackmail to destroy anyone who wants to harm you. And among other powermongers, that means the situation only appears stable because of mutually assured destruction.
So, in essence, no social policy or law is going to be of particular importance to Thiel; it's all positional in his worldview - all the rules are made to be broken.
The Nazis put most homosexuals in the camps (and the Allies put them back in jail when they emptied the camps) , but Goering did pretty well out of it.
Yeah, there's something contradictory about his obsession with Gawker outing him and his asserted openness about his orientation.
Actually, Thiel's full of contradictions. A professed libertarian celebrity hunting a media outlet over reporting too much information; someone claiming to be a defender of privacy founding a data mining company providing information to the government panopticon; a Stanford grad bemoaning the educational elite... do I need to go on?
Thiel strikes me as someone who heavily hedges their bets, and is probably conflicted with themselves.
I'm not surprised he supported Trump, really. I don't think it was about prescience as much as it was attraction to Trump's authoritarian, sensationalistic, prejudicial brand of quasilibertarianism. They're very similar in their political positions or outlooks -- Thiel is just shrewder, less crass, and probably more intelligent.
Trump gets to work helping LGBT Americans by tapping anti-gay Ken Blackwell to his transition team.
“I think homosexuality is a lifestyle, it’s a choice, and that lifestyle can be changed,” Blackwell told the Columbus Dispatch at the time. “I think it is a transgression against God’s law, God’s will.”
It was a brilliant play by Peter Thiel - it was gamble of 50:50 (I believe he started supporting him only at the Republican Convention).. There would be backlash by technology community, and when you have lot of money and networking available to you; there is no one in the technology community that will stop doing business with you.. Kudos to the HN crowd about the Freedom of Speech, sometimes - I guess you need to be extremist in either being Left Wing or Right Wing..
So the man whose company was funded by the CIA to conduct mass big data surveillance is now going to be helping to decide the structure of the executive branch, with "Law and Order" Giuliani probably as Attorney General.
What could go wrong?
IMHO, YC had their chance to divorce themselves from Thiel. They can still do it, but this is their last chance. Silicon Valley is not going to forget this conflict of interest.
>Silicon Valley is not going to forget this conflict of interest.
The Silicon Valley that was giving Hillary millions so they could vie for the same positions? Or Google staffers that met at the White House over 427 times, during the same administration that expanded surveillance against Americans?
TL;DR; It's probably a good thing for Silicon Valley, considering the alternative outcome (all other things equal): Trump still winning the election without a single Silicon Valley influencer.
Is this (post, thread) on-topic for HN? Seems to fall pretty definitively into the politics / TV news category.
(Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.)
I respect Thiel's loyalty to Trump. As people are hiding from Trump after the bus incident, he comes out writing a check and giving a speech about why trump is the right choice again knowing he will get crucify in the Valley. Hope he does well now considering his influence in the Valley.
What Paul may have failed to consider in taking his "tolerant, neutral" stance towards Thiel's activities is that, in politics, one absolutely is 100% guilty by association with the forces of darkness that one allows one's self to come into (sufficiently close) contact with. Or as that most prescient saying, variously attributed, goes: Qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent ("He that lieth down with dogs shall rise up with fleas").
On the other hand, if he's finding "heat" that he'll inevitably be taking, by ever-rising degrees, for his association with Thiel (and hence, Trump and everything he stands for) to be not to his liking -- it's still not too late to get out of the kitchen.
If there is anyone I want at the helm of America, it's Peter Theil. If I was going to bet on anyone to solve the nation's problems it would be him. But then, I would be surprised if he accepts the role. He seems like a very private individual and someone who is interested in capital than in politics. It would be a great personal sacrifice for him to turn his back on his business ventures to look into stuff like this that will give him very little return and take up an enormous amount of his time and resources.
"Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."
As a Marxist, I actually agree with his point here. Of course he was being provocative but I don't think malicious, not by any means.
He did not mean women should not have been given the vote. And "welfare beneficiaries" actually doesn't refer to minorities there (although they'd be included among the beneficiaries of the New Deal).
What he said and meant, translated into Leftist language, is that it was clear by the 1920s that there was no longer any hope for resolving the crisis of bourgeois democracy. In other words, democracy and capitalism had become contradictory, incompatible. That's true, and had been true long before 1920, but the concept of history he articulates isn't totally incorrect. At least he thinks.
It is worth noting that the 1920s was also the decade when the German Left collapsed, all but sealing the fate of the October Revolution with it. Theil misrecognizes history when he blames the failure of the bourgeois revolution on politics, but he isn't wrong to recognize the importance of the bourgeois revolution. He just doesn't go far enough--only the socialist revolution could fulfill the promises of the bourgeois revolution (Great French Revolution).
I give a sort of point-by-point critique of his essay here:
But even if you accept that "democracy and capitalism had become contradictory, incompatible" Theil favors the latter over the former. Bad feels ensue.
You're just posting bullshit lies about Thiel everywhere you can. He said it pretty explicitly:
> It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better.
He also points out that the "most intense reaction" was to the factual "commonplace statistical observation about voting patterns that is often called the gender gap".
Lying is one of the main reasons the Democrats lost. Learn something from their failure.
This was obvious from the RNC speech and further reinforced when Thiel donated $1M to Trump. A contrarian bet, sure, but $1M is a pretty small price to pay to have a 50/50 shot at CTO of the USA. I'm sure he'll see a very significant ROI on his $1M once the government starts awarding contracts very conveniently to companies of which he owns a portion.
I had very negative feelings about Thiel, and those were magnified 10x after his endorsement of Trump, but I'll at least concede he's a very shrewd individual.
> I think Thiel is hedging for both himself and as a proxy for Facebook. If Trump wins, Facebook gets the most favored corporation status currently awarded to Google. If Trump loses, Thiel perhaps assumes everyone will forget soon enough and Zuckerberg can diss-avow any Facebook connection.
In retrospect, the one thing I think I was wrong about were the odds. I thought it was a long shot.
Facebook has sentiment analysis and definitely had a better guess on how the election would turn out than perhaps anyone else in the world. While pollsters were trying to extrapolate on what the entire population would be doing based on small samples and proprietary methods, Facebook just had the data. Not only can Facebook say you are a Trump supporter, but they can know by how much and as time series!
Make no mistake, "Most favored tech company" status just swapped Google with Facebook.
I don't support Trump, I believe very, very little of what he has said he supports or will do. However, I am fairly upset about the public support Hillary received. From foreign policy to domestic issues, her track record is appalling and with the exception of pro-war moderates, everyone who supported her should at least be embarrassed about it.
I am no fan of the Clintons. Personally, during my lifetime, Obama is the only president I halfway respected, with his stance on state surveillance being a notable exception. I think there is a small amount of corruption with Hillary, as I believe is true of most politicians. However, given a choice between Hillary and Trump, for me it's no contest.
Don't get me wrong, I think Trump has the potential to do some good. I am still unsure how much of his campaign he actually believes or intends to do. Term limits, I think, are probably a good thing, though also probably a long shot. If he keeps his word on not being able to be bought, that will be good. More non-professional politicians in government is probably a good thing in general.
That said, because of Trump you can almost certainly kiss goodbye: climate/renewable energy science, net neutrality, Roe v. Wade, higher minimum wage, etc. You can bet that soon the official language/religion of the US will be English and Christianity respectively. Nuclear weapons will almost certainly go back into production and military spending in general will skyrocket, while education funding continues to shrink.
It would take a hell of a lot of corruption from Hillary to get me to vote for any of that.
Trump is about as far from a Christian as you can get in a person. I very highly doubt that he cares about religion except as a useful electioneering tool. He is unlikely to stick with that label during his presidency since it would be inconvenient, so I don't think you have to worry about Christianity being the official religion.
I agree that he probably isn't much of a believer in the cause himself. But more Republicans than not support it, and plenty of Democrats are at least publicly beholden to Christians as well.
While not unthinkable, getting Christianity into the Constitution as the official religion is likely not going to happen. But that doesn't mean that plenty of things won't end up on Trump's desk which make Christianity effectively the official religion (if you already think that's the case, you ain't seen nothing yet). We have to trust Trump to be able to stand up to those who put him in power and veto this stuff? While he may surprise me, as they say, I trust him about as far as I could throw him.
> You can bet that soon the official language/religion of the US will be English and Christianity respectively.
Not a goddamn chance. There's absolutely no way this could possibly change. This is one of those sacred American things, written into the framework of the entire country. Even if a small minority of people are for it, it would NEVER pass.
Yeah, you could say "Well, people were saying the same thing about a Trump presidency a few weeks ago, and here we are." I get that strange things are happening, but Trump was elected via the American process, so it's not like all the rules are falling apart.
> Not only can Facebook say you are a Trump supporter, but they can know by how much and as time series!
That's a fascinating insight. They also have the geographic data and could slice/dice to get a sense of electoral college. After the systematic polling error that caught everyone off-guard, we will probably see some innovations in the next 4 years that will get incorporated into the ensemble models (e.g. 538). Perhaps Facebook will release some sort of sentiment data. Although that may get a little creepy.
Yep. That's the best explanation of what happened. I totally believe Thiel knew exactly that Trump had a great shot at the presidency before supporting him publicly.
> I'm sure he'll see a very significant ROI on his $1M once the government starts awarding contracts very conveniently to companies of which he owns a portion.
Wasn't Trump rallying against such crony corruption aka 'pay for play'?
If we believe all the recently headlines about who he's bringing in it appears pure "pay to play". Lots of individuals who Trump "owes" through either money or support they provided to him; pure cronyism.
I'm not sure Trump realizes what worked best in business, or what he felt worked best for him in what business he has done, is not necessarily best for operating policy. I'm not sure he cares. I suspect he might though. Dude looked humble-struck in the video today with Obama; almost worried about what he got himself into.
"Lots of individuals who Trump "owes" through either money or support they provided to him; pure cronyism."
Trump is the most 'free' President in modern history.
He 'owes' the least, to the fewest people.
This is one thing even the center-left press were talking about.
As for Thiel - $1M might seem like a lot - but Trump doesn't really 'owe' Thiel anything, because Thiel doesn't have direct future influence etc., and Trump doesn't need him in the future.
For example: Bill Maher gave $1M to Obama. For that you get some friendly things, but Obama didn't need Maher after that.
Hillary is not directly uber wealthy - and she accepted $57M from private individuals and businesses while she was Sec of State - for which she provided mostly small favours (introductions).
Trump had the smallest team in Presidential history, the banks were mostly betting on Hillary etc..
I don't really like Trump, but he's largely unburdened by having to hand out appointments.
He'll give them to those that 'stuck by him' i.e. Guliani etc. and scorn on the old Bush guard.
Why exactly am I meant to be comforted by the fact that the craven opportunists --- the lowest of the low of the Republican party, discredited outsiders like Newt Gingrich and John Bolton --- are getting the most important positions in the United States government for kowtowing to Trump?
There are important thinkers in the Republican Party. People with ideas and a moral core, people who have given years of service to the country (and, for that matter, the party). They're nowhere in the discussion --- most of them opposed Trump, who campaigned in large part in repudiation of conservative foreign policy and conservative fiscal policy. There's Robert Gates. And then there's Newt Gingrich, who has demonstrated nothing but an ability to personally profit off the chaos he's sown in the party for decades. Gingrich is a Trump winner; Gates, a loser.
You just described the literal definition of cronyism as if it was a good thing.
> Why exactly am I meant to be comforted by the fact that the craven opportunists --- the lowest of the low of the Republican party [...] are getting the most important positions in the United States government for kowtowing to Trump?
Twenty-three days ago you and Marco sought to get Peter Thiel removed from YC for his support of Trump[1]. This is to say you were explicitly working to ensure that respectable people would distance themselves from Trump for fear of being ostracized.
Although Peter is still with YC, the broader campaign of social pressure you participated in worked. The respectable Republicans distanced themselves from Trump. As might be expected, Trump is now giving governmental positions to those who didn't distance themselves from him during the election. I don't find that surprising, nor do I find it surprising that those who stuck with Trump were the discredited outsiders (they were already ostracized).
Quite frankly the surprising part of this story is finding you, just twenty-three days after your witch hunt, lamenting that no one respectable is in Trump's inner circle. Isn't this the sort of outcome you were explicitly fighting for less than a month ago?
The respectable Republicans distanced themselves from Trump
But that shouldn't really matter, as both sides know it was all about posturing and publicity. Just like Trump is (hopefully?) going to be a much more reasonable president than his campaign antics would lead you to believe, so he can work with the respectable Republicans in a much better way than their campaign behaviour would you lead to believe.
Twenty-three days ago [..]
And one year ago Trump suggested the plurality vote should determine the presidency, in which case he would have lost.
Neither he nor his supporters will agree to that now, nor will he acknowledge he was wrong. And there will be no consequences.
Most people only have eye for short term problems, don't have a good memory or good associative capabilities and don't think beyond the outcome they hope for.
Even if you are aware of longer term problems, consequences and have a good memory, you may still choose to pursue short term goals in your opinion-making, because those listening to you want you to address their immediate concerns. You don't need to worry about contradicting yourself or causing new problems: they won't notice.
So congratulations on remembering that an action/proposal/opinion of 23 days ago opposes one now. Did you also realize back then what the consequences in face of an adverse outcome would be? That would be an extreme ability of foresight. And unfortunately it doesn't make a lick of difference.
> Just like Trump is (hopefully?) going to be a much more reasonable president than his campaign antics would lead you to believe
Hmm. I'm not sure what you mean by reasonable here. I have to admit I'm rather worried that Trump is actually an outsider / non-politician, and that this will result in some rather awful power struggles for the foreseeable future as the government undergoes the bureaucratic equivalent of (hopefully) chemotherapy, or (more pessimistically) leprosy. "Reasonable" to me basically means an exceedingly boring and predictable government.
> Did you also realize back then what the consequences in face of an adverse outcome would be?
My basic position was and is that shunning, as a tactic, is net negative. Or at least is net negative when done to sophisticated opponents. If the person's wrong, kicking them out will just cause them to continue being wrong only this time with different people and without you around to correct them. If the person's right, kicking them out will just keep you wrong only this time without anyone to help you find the truth.
> And unfortunately it doesn't make a lick of difference.
hah, agree. If commenting on HN isn't its own reward, it's a waste of time :p
When he is in fact not a more reasonable President than his campaign antics led us to believe, when he staffs the most important roles in the government with clowns and charlatans --- the most craven and discredited insiders of the Bush administration and the 90s GOP --- how are you going to feel about this conversation?
I was not disagreeing that it was a rational strategy to pull as much respectable support as possible away from Trump. It's defensible, but it has to be acknowledged that its downside was worsening the worst case: a president with no respectable support and without the opportunity to choose respectable advisers.
It would be best if Trump would choose respectable Republicans as advisers. I hope they are offering their services and he considers them without malice.
All we can do at this moment is try to make the best of it. That means giving him a chance to do things right. If he doesn't, we'll see soon enough.
> As might be expected, Trump is now giving governmental positions to those who didn't distance themselves from him during the election. I don't find that surprising.
Cronyism "might be expected" from politicians. (In fact it's very expected from self-serving, hubristic politicians like Donald Trump.) That doesn't make cronyism OK.
Cronyism in my understanding is essentially hiring friends who are unqualified for a given job. In this case, it looks to me like what's going on could better be described as not hiring otherwise qualified candidates who publicly denounced you. Or maybe more tactfully 'limiting the applicant pool to people who share the same vision.'
To make this more concrete, in GGP Robert Gates is brought up as a respectable republican who Trump presumably would have appointed were he not engaged in cronyism. Google "Robert Gates Trump" then let me know if you really think cronyism is the best explanation for why Robert Gates didn't get the job.
We should expect the most powerful office in the world to hire the best people for the job. Saying that Donald Trump is "beyond repair" (which is a statement I happen to agree with) is not disqualifying. The idea that it is disqualifying has a word: cronyism.
For political appointees who are implementing your promises that determine whether you get re-elected, loyalty is a very important qualification.
We all know how easy it is for political promises to be broken - there are any number of ways to sabotage an effort you're in charge of, while appearing to act in good faith.
You don't even have to do it deliberately - you just need to give 100% in a job that needs you to give 110%.
Who do you think has more incentive to deliver your vision? A guy who hates you, and who thinks he'll get a better boss (maybe even be boss himself) if you're out of the way? Or a guy whose ship is tied to yours and if you go down, he'll never achieve such heights in his career again?
If you were working at a startup, your argument would be the equivalent of advocating hiring individuals who need you for their job and therefore won't be a threat to you. I would much rather hire and work with people smarter than me who can help me grow. You're only as good as your weakest link.
There's certainly value for passion about the mission, but it shouldn't be confused with desperation.
Is it really cronyism? It seems like most of the "qualified people" don't share his vision, so why would you hire someone that is so opposed to what you're doing?
If Trump were a Silicon Valley CEO, we would be saying he's not hiring them due to a "cultural fit."
Hiring the best qualified people who wants to Make America Great Again is different from giving favors to unqualified foreigners who wants to screw over the American people.
You used the phrase "threat to society" several times.
The phrase implies a moral basis. What is your moral basis for determining what is a threat to society?
Who is entitled to define what is a "threat to society"?
Throughout history there have been many immoral governmental oppressions justified by some ruler's own definition of "threat to society", which many of the ruled people at the time were convinced to believe.
I just used the word "immoral". As I said, this requires a basis. What is morality? Clearly it is not "what the majority of society believe in". The beliefs of society can and do change over time and circumstances. Does this mean that what is moral changes over time? If you say it does, I will say "then that is not morality".
The basis for morality cannot be your own beliefs. Nor can it be the beliefs of a majority of "society". The only true and reliable basis for morality must be the character of the one true, just, righteous and unchanging eternal God, he whose name is "I AM WHO I AM".
The thought processes of all these allegedly enlightened people are strange. For all the claims of "rationality", I can barely find difference with the psychology of the most primitive tribesmen. Just a better grade of pretexts.
(The murderous rage of the "rationalists" in the French, Russian, Chinese, Cambodian, etc. revolutions, all conducted by very educated people, is well documented and quite sad.)
Personally I'd argue that people building a campaign around the idea that one's neighbours are sending out vicious "rapists" and the solution is to build a wall and force the neighbours to pay for it is rather closer to primitive tribal psychology than arguments for boycotting individuals actively endorsing and funding the dissemination of said hate. YMMV.
Regardless of whether one thinks boycotts are a reasonable way for people to express their view or unhelpful political pressure on other people's views, comparing them with mass murders conducted by revolutionaries is just unhinged.
>Twenty-three days ago you and Marco sought to get Peter Thiel removed from YC for his support of Trump
WOW. This is insane! Things like this and Mozilla's CEO situation are exactly why Trump won the destitute and the rich alike.
Liberals shoving down their half-baked morals into everybody's throats. How condescending. So much for Egalitarianism. We are equal, just not with Trump voters. What a hypocrisy.
> Liberals shoving down their half-baked morals into everybody's throats. How condescending. So much for Egalitarianism. We are equal, just not with Trump voters. What a hypocrisy.
Mind you, never in the history of history have people fought against discrimination, corruption, and oppression by saying "but they might have a point too".
Uncle Tom's Cabin, the most effective anti-slavery propaganda of the 19th century, opened up with a scene of slaves living in favorable conditions and getting along well with their masters.
A Modest Enquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft by John Hale is a book credited with ending the Salem Witch trials. In it he acknowledges testimony in the trials that could certainly lead one to believe witchcraft actually happened.
Stowe and Hale acknowledged truth in the opposing side in situations much more oppressive and discriminatory than Trump's border wall or immigration restrictions. People who want to effect change today should take note.
There are no "favorable conditions" to slavery. Slavery sought to find moral ground on the hypothesis that the master knew what was best for their slaves. Stowe repeatedly makes the point that even kind masters were prevented from freeing their slaves.
Hale supported the work of the courts until his second wife was accused of practicing witchcraft. Hah.
This is, in fact, why it's so difficult to fight these things. Interpretation has trumped over documentation, context "fades", lies are so much easier to propagate, refuting bullshit could be an actual 24/7 job. How could anybody keep up. Maybe we're doomed to having morons destroy a few tens of millions of people every 100 years.
No, I replied right on point. Let me spell it out:
1. No "favorable conditions" to slavery means Stowe never recognised advantages to slavery. Not only he does not, but he laments it despite those "favorable conditions".
2. Hale didn't excuse the courts; he actively supported their work. That is, until he decided he didn't want to. Later commentators on the trials mark this as the defining moment that helped turn public opinion against the prosecutions.
Uhh, Stowe is Harriet Beecher Stowe, so "he" ought to be "she". Because this is HN, I'll assume good intent and presume this is just a slip and doesn't indicate your lack of familiarity with the material you're discussing.
Precisely. There are literal stacks of books on these matter, and I can't condense a single one of them in a HN post more than providing the facts. If you're interested, you're going to have to read them. It's dreadful, I know.
Using accusation of discrimination, corruption, and oppression to justify the oppression of Trump supporters is morally wrong. The witch-hunt must stop.
Do you see what you're doing?
"Witches are bad, and since Trump supporters are witches, it's okay to kill them."
It's all accusations. There is no videos proof of Trump supporters going around lynching Black people like what the KKK did back in the old days.
You're doing a witch hunt where you accuse Trump supporters of being a witch, and then justifying that it's okay to kill them them because they're witches. Do you see how wrong that is? You don't even know them personally, so how would you even know that they're witches?
What Liberals are doing to Trump supporters is the same thing that the Nazi did to the Jews.
The Nazi accused the Jews of many many things. The Nazi tricked everyone to hate the Jews (with all sorts of accusations). Once people hated the Jews, the Nazi were able to kill off the Jews without any backlash, because in those people's mind, the Jews "deserved" it.
Liberals are doing the same thing to Trump supporters. Accuse Trump supporters of being racist (I don't see any Trump supporter going around lynching Black people), and making it okay to beat up Trump supporter because they "deserve" it.
This witch hunt has to stop. It's 2016 already, and I can't believe witch hunt (under the new name "Trump Supporters Are Racist And They Deserve To Get Beat Up") is still happening.
I'm gonna keep shoving my half-baked morals of "not assaulting women" and "lynching is somewhat out of date" into every throat I can find.
Trump's victory only shows I overestimated people. My morals may not have a majority, so it's great they aren't subject to a popularity contest. Democracy isn't about two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
Regarding "egalitarianism": People are created equal, they deserve equal chances, equal treatment before the law when the situations are equal. it doesn't mean all opinions deserve equal consideration. If I get cancer, I'll listen to an expert. If I read something on foreign policy, I'll give more weight to a Condi Rice interview in the NYT than something by "blahi". It's the result of a general policy called "Don't be an idiot".
Your smugness and arrogance are what brought us Trump. You know how people ought to feel, how they should form their opinion. By all means, keep doing what you're doing. Nothing wrong with your approach.
So we should all be tolerant of racism, sexism, outright sexual assualt ("grab 'em by the pussy") and boasting of same, mocking the disabled, stiffing contractors and suppliers?
We should try to convince them why we believe they are wrong, rather than just condemning them and pointing out how they are lesser people for not agreeing with us.
It's really hard to get anywhere if it requires explaining everything from first principle. I'm also really sorry for overestimating people by assuming that "do not grab women by their genitals without their consent" or "do not shoot people for fun – even when they're African-American" don't need further justification.
And yes, I am, just now, calling these people idiots. Because their argument seems to be "I don't like how you're making fun of me, so I'm gonna find some bystanders and beat them up, because I know how much it hurts you to watch people suffer".
I'd also say this "condescension" has always been a two-way street. All the talk of "real America" has, since at least the Sarah Palin disaster, been a way to insult "the elites".
The only way to change the playing field in that way is to have a majority of people feel the same way, which requires either convincing them or waiting until the old group dies out.
Whereas, "Got 'em by the balls" has passed fully into colloquial usage for some time now, it may be difficult for many to feel earnest moral outrage over this statement when the plaintiff's core platform includes social equality of the sexes. Rather, all your audience hears is the political Left reiterating a double standard that is stacked against whites, males, and particularly the intersection of the two categories.
The vast majority of both parties lives their entire life without bearing any hatred for any race or gender as a category of person.
Leftists are subject to the same basic human nature as Rightists, and this includes the tendencies to censor, bully, label, and dismiss those who disagree with us.
Sorry, by plaintiff you mean who, exactly? If you mean Trump, we'll have to see if he follows through on his promises, but his own public remarks suggest a severe want of genuine respect for women.
And speaking as a White Male, the idea that the deck is stacked against us, compared to the experiences of women and minorities, suggests either a deliberate blindness or an attempt to troll. It is simply one of the most jaw-dropping suggestions I've ever seen in a HN comment.
>And speaking as a White Male, the idea that the deck is stacked against us
So you speak for the experience of all white males now? You know what it's like to grow up in Appalachia? Did you lose a factory job in Michigan? Did you have any experience coal mining in Pennsylvania until you couldn't? Have you farmed in the middle of Kansas? If not then don't try to speak for the people who have. This kind of rhetoric from the left is a very good reason why Trump is the President-Elect right now. If your side figures that out sometime in the next four years, you might have a chance next time.
But that doesn't mean the preceding comment was right to compare "grab them by the balls" to "grab them by the pussy". "Grab them by the balls" is an expression. "Grab them by the pussy" was a claim that Trump could do exactly that, to anyone he chose, by virtue of his celebrity. That claim was backed by a Cosby-esque assortment of women with sexual assault stories involving Trump.
I agree that one could interpret the quote in context that way. I also appreciate the effort to correct misinformation and cherry-picked quotes.
In this case, the gp quote is accurate, though arguably cherry-picked or purposely misinterpreted.
Trump: And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.
Bush: Whatever you want.
Trump: Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.
I've trimmed the quote in the interest of space, while leaving enough to attempt to show the context. If you'd like to add more context, I have no problem with that. I chose the sources I did as they were the first that came up in the search results when looking for the full transcript.
I certainly don't claim to speak for all white male. However, pleading that white males are more discriminated against than women or majorities is making exactly the same kind of mistake of which you are erroneously accusing me. You are trying to cover up the flaw in your logic with an ad hominem attack.
I should clarify: the deck is massively stacked against a great number of people. White males are massively represented in that number. However, for many situations women and minorities face additional discrimination which you are, for some reason, unwilling or unable to acknowledge.
>I should clarify: the deck is massively stacked against a great number of people. White males are massively represented in that number. However, for many situations women and minorities face additional discrimination which you are, for some reason, unwilling or unable to acknowledge.
Again you are reducing the experience of millions of people into your little clear-cut categories and trying to speak for them. Not only are you trying to speak for white males but you apparently also speak for women and minorities. Your side's identity politicking is fallacious to its core and cost you the election. But don't stop now, we have another election in 2 years.
I spoke as a White Male, not as a representative of all White Males. It would help if you focused on the discussion at hand instead of just perpetuating ad hominem attacks.
Your position appears to be that nobody should speak for, or even attempt to understand, anyone who does not share their own particular experience. That is obviously fallacious and suggests trolling.
I'm not sure what clear-cut categories you are reading. Perhaps you could in your infinite wisdom educate us poor unenlightened seekers of wisdom as to the true state of world affairs?
> I spoke as a White Male, not as a representative of all White Males
>> And speaking as a White Male, the idea that the deck is stacked against us
You literally wrote the word "us" so, yes, you did speak for all white males or at least a significant enough fraction of them to make the distinguishment irrelevant.
> Your position appears to be that nobody should speak for, or even attempt to understand, anyone who does not share their own particular experience. That is obviously fallacious and suggests trolling.
You have no rational basis to define my life experience through your little lens using as specious a basis as group identity. Your argument is the fallacious one. You do not know the tiniest insignificant fraction of the people you are presuming to judge yet you pompously shoot your mouth off which is the height of hubris. If you think that is wrong or trolling then, again, you have learned nothing.
> Perhaps you could in your infinite wisdom educate us poor unenlightened seekers of wisdom as to the true state of world affairs?
You aren't seeking wisdom. You think you know everybody's experience already from the comfort of your computer. You don't. There's your enlightenment.
Simply put, I took issue with the statement "a double standard that is stacked against whites, males, and particularly the intersection of the two categories." I don't extend my personal experiences to all White Males, but the author of the comment clearly did. I said that my own experience did not back up his assertion that it affected all White Males. I fail to see why that commentator is allowed to make sweeping generalisations but I'm not allowed to exclude myself from that sweep through dint of personal experiences.
No, but you should be tolerant of others who don't share your beliefs. Calling for Peter Thiel to be thrown out of YC or telling your employees to resign if they support Trump is being intolerant.
Up to and including anything that anyone might consider to go under those labels?
> outright sexual assualt ("grab 'em by the pussy")
We should at least be careful of describing something that is not an instance of "outright sexual assault" as "outright sexual assault". "boasting of same" is not the same.
> stiffing contractors and suppliers
I assume Hillary is also out then, as that would be tolerating corruption?
What did the testimony from the women who came forward and described the things he had done to them lead you to believe?
Personally I thought it was just a stupid rather vulgar boast when I first heard the line. Then we heard from victims... who's testimonials changed my opinion quite easily. It's one thing to be the sort of idiot that says such things... it's another thing entirely to do them.
Also since I'm not even an American I have no inherent bias towards either end of the stupidly partisan political spectrum that is D vs R in the US of A
Personally I think George Washington was completely correct in his characterisation of political parties in his farewell address. [1] (20 to 25 ) and why he hoped they would never be formed in America.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.
Then we heard from victims... who's testimonials changed my opinion quite easily.
This is why we need courts, rule of law and what have you. And even then I'm not always convinced, what with the US's terrible habit of plea bargaining.
>So we should all be tolerant of racism, sexism, outright sexual assualt ("grab 'em by the pussy") and boasting of same, mocking the disabled, stiffing contractors and suppliers?
The problem is, most Trump supporters are not racist or sexist.
You're doing a witch hunt where you accuse someone of being a witch, and then justifying that it's okay to kill them them because they're witches. Do you see how wrong that is? You don't even know them personally, so how would you even know that they're witches?
I've advocated killing nobody and no one. Nor have I accused anyone of being racist or sexist except Trump.
Trump has said he will ban all Muslims entering the USA. That is discrimination on the grounds of religion.
He has repeatedly characterised Mexicans as rapists. That is racism.
He has repeatedly made disrespectful comments about women based on their appearance and questioned their ability to do their job based on whether they're on their Period. That is sexism.
He has boasted about being able to get away with uninhibited sexual contact because of his position of power and money. Women have corroborated his own claims and have stated that it was unwelcome. When both he and they are making consistent statements the balance of probability is that they're both telling the truth.
The idea that non-protest counts as consent is massively dangerous especially if one party has all the power and if the contact in question has already happened and finished.
>Trump has said he will ban all Muslims entering the USA. That is discrimination on the grounds of religion.
Not really. It's only discrimination if Trump applies it to every Muslims. But Trump doesn't apply it to every Muslims.
Trump said he will temporary ban immigrants (they don't even have to be Muslim) from countries with direct ties to terrorism, until they can be properly vet. This is not discrimination against Muslims because Trump has no problem with Muslims who are U.S. citizens and Trump has no problem with Muslims who are from countries that are fighting against ISIS.
>He has repeatedly made disrespectful comments about women based on their appearance. That is sexism.
If you're talking about Miss Universe... It was not sexism.
Trump was preemptively defending Miss Universe from the incoming media. The media was going to have a field day with her when she shows up at the Miss Universe 60 pounds overweight. She didn't understand that the media was about to hang her out to dry. Trump knew what was going to happen, so he invited the media over, and called the reporters fat, and Trump even called himself fat, and tells everyone that being fat is normal, so that the reporters can not call her fat (because they will look like hypocrites).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpXsAoXZIMg
>...questioned their ability to do their job based on whether they're on their Period.
This have no factual evidence. Not only that, he had done many things to help empowered women. For example, he was the first to let a woman be in charge of building a skyscraper building. That was unheard of during the 80's.
He also admit that a female worker with skills and abilities is worth more than 10 male workers.
>Women have corroborated his own claims and have stated that it was unwelcome.
No evidence. Trump either had never even met those people before, or they just want their 15 minute of fame, or were being paid by his opponents. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f8d_1478953280
>The idea that non-protest counts as consent is massively dangerous especially if one party has all the power and if the contact in question has already happened and finished.
Trump said they let him grab their pussy. Emphasis on the THEY LET part. That's consent.
All these are just election smears. The typical election smears that you see every election years, as rivals tries to make their opponents look as bad as possible.
None of these are even important, as the election result have shown. Voters are not stupid. They care more about jobs, security, and health issues than these smears.
Hillary was so focus on the smearing Trump that she forgot about what the voters actually cares about. And that's why she lost.
No, you should be tolerant of people. You should also endeavor to note the distinction between saying something and doing something, because it's not even subtle and insisting it doesn't exist, for example by labeling a joke "sexual assault," does not convince reasonable people that you are on the level.
So I'm not "on the level"? Classy. I'm pretty clear in the distinction between saying and doing, and it's pretty well-established that speech itself can be harmful. I think the Left and Right both point to things that the other says which they find objectionable, so there is broad agreement on that principle at least.
Regarding tolerance of people, that depends on how they're behaving. Society doesn't tolerate certain behaviours, and will imprison people for some of them, so arguing that you should always tolerate people is to separate people and their actions in a way that isn't always possible or appropriate.
There's a difference between bragging and actually doing something. Trump brag that he's so rich, women would let him grab their pussy. Women would LET him grab their pussy.
Also, he said the women LET him do it. In other word, they CONSENT!
That is not a true statement. tptacek never called for Thiel to be removed from YC, and I challenge you to point to any statement of his to the contrary.
> This is the problem with the needle Altman is trying to thread...If Altman means what he says, he should do what he can to shut this question down.
> Thiel doesn't even get equity in YC. Thiel's participation in YC is almost literally just a marketing tactic --- it's a co-endorsement. We're telling Altman: rethink the endorsement. (this is actually copy-pasted again in another comment)
tptacek all but says those exact words. I don't know what other interpretation but YC removal/exclusion is implied.
America didn't elect a technocrat. We elected a bigmouth reality TV star. Should probably think of the Trump cabinet as something more like a Breitbart sitcom than a functional administration.
You're talking as if Hillary "like with a cloth or something" Clinton was a step-up in technological knowledge over "my son's very good with the cyber".
Are you have a whole separate discussion in your own head and inviting me to take over the role in mid-production? Because I have no idea where that even came from, and I'm not interested in finding out.
Wondering, who do you think he should have brought on board that you'd think -- "Oh that's a good choice, good for him"?
I would guess nobody? If he brought Gingrich it would have been "He's bringing the old crusty white guy from the establishment, he's been lying all this time he is just like them". If he brought in a woman, people would have just said "he is using her as a token"?
Oh sorry, you're right. I was an idiot and mixed up Gates and Gingrich.
The gist of what I was trying to say and messed up badly was that no matter who he would pick, they'd be criticism. If he picked Gates, people would have said he was an insider. If he picked an outsider, then it looks risky and it will just be more incompetence. If a minority, then he is just pandering...
In your thought process is the right thing to promote the people who doubted, and in some cases outright campaigned against him?
The country voted and chose Trump. That means that they also chose him to pick the people that he'll be surrounding himself with to make decisions.
GP isn't saying there isn't a rewarding of those that stood by him. He's saying that compared to the unbridled corruption of a candidate that the left was runninng, this is peanuts.
Don't forget the rumors of cabinet positions for Ben Carson and Sarah Palin. I'm not sure I would call it cronyism as much as the promotion of craven sycophants.
I'm speculating, but I think you need to factor in that Trump will not tolerate advisors who outshine him. He probably wants a cabinet of loyalists before he starts caring about qualifications. Also, his appeal is significantly premised on the idea that experts are suspect and part of the problem.
>discredited outsiders like Newt Gingrich and John Bolton --- are getting the most important positions in the United States government for kowtowing to Trump?
Has he actually announced this yet or you just assuming?
Gingrich was instrumental in poisening political discourse in this country.
From Wikipedia:
"In 1990, after consulting focus groups[38] with the help of pollster Frank Luntz,[39] GOPAC distributed a memo with a cover letter signed by Gingrich titled "Language, a Key Mechanism of Control", that encouraged Republicans to "speak like Newt" and contained lists of "contrasting words"—words with negative connotations such as "radical", "sick," and "traitors"—and "optimistic positive governing words" such as "opportunity", "courage", and "principled", that Gingrich recommended for use in describing Democrats and Republicans, respectively.[38]"
All of these things are true, but my deeper problem with Gingrich is his incompetence and simultaneously casual and spectacular overestimation of his own abilities. Read stories about how he managed his '12 bid for the Presidency, or how he managed the GOP after the shutdown in the '90s.
A Republican administration involves the adoption and execution of many ideas I fiercely disagree with. But I'm prepared to operate within a context of governance I disagree with --- so long as there's a backbone of competence behind it. Newt Gingrich represents a flailing, slapdash, amygdalic chaos, a marshaling of a militia of bad ideas aimed roughly in the direction of the aggrandizement of Newt Gingrich, and who cares how many American lives get in the way.
There are plenty of Republicans I disagree with --- can't stand --- feel moral contempt towards --- but can accept as the competent execution of an ideology that must, at some interval in American politics, take the helm. Even Donald Rumsfeld --- himself proven incompetent --- at least didn't lash his incompetence to a lizard-brained need to see himself in the newspaper. Gingrich is something worse than that.
This is some kind of creepy Randian thinking. The idea that playing developer-type leverage games make you "free" is a laughable fiction. Trump always called himself the King of Debt, and he owes many people, bigly. The banks were betting on Hillary because familiarity breeds contempt--they had already lost billions lending to him since the 80s. Just like the Trump Foundation, he hasn't put anything except his gold-painted name into s business for many years. Who does he owe: Putin, Russian oligarchs, Thiel, Mnuchin, 2nd and 3rd rate hucksters that bankroll his schemes (and pay him through his Foundation), and...who knows? He won't release his taxes. We just elected President the world's poorest billionaire, so you can bet everything will be for sale.
> We just elected President the world's poorest billionaire, so you can bet everything will be for sale.
I have the feeling that Trump will be a worse copy of Berlusconi. Both have a fetish for young girls (Trump even said he 'd date his daughter, if she weren't related to him), both are extremely focused on PR, both do not really like politics based on facts, Berlusconi abused and manipulated the Italian court system in his years as president to avoid punishments - and I bet my ... that Trump will do the same.
Saying someone is good looking enough for sex isn't "sexual objectification". He just chose a bit awkward way of pointing out she's beautiful. Not creepy, although probably crude and/or primitive. Personally, I applaude him for that, I favor freedom of expression to political correctness. But I do understand how others would be appalled.
Since he never released his taxes we have no idea about his financial situation. We have no clear idea who he owns what to. After a string of business debacles his US financing sources all but dried up. He definitely owes money to Deutsche Bank. (It's going to be fun when he will have to negotiate their 14 billion fine.) It is likely that he owes money to Russian banks. He also owns real estate across the world.
I would not call him a free president, on the contrary. He is more beholden to foreign interests than any other president in recent history.
He also doesn't seem to have a real plan to disentangle himself from his business interests as a president. He said he will let his kids run the Trump foundation, but that's still a huge conflict of interest.
The traditional way to avoid conflicts of interests is to put your assets into a blind trust (i.e. liquidate your assets and let an independent person administer them without you knowing about how your money is allocated). I don't see Trump ever doing that.
The balance of financial and socio-political arrangements are an interesting topic. At what point is a debt large enough for the lender to exert influence over the borrower and what point it is so great that the lender is totally invested in the borrowers success?
The borrower's (Trump's) success is not necessarily aligned with the nation's success. This is exactly why it represents a potential conflict of interests.
E.g. Trump can halve DB's fine in return for future loans. Win-win for both of them, a loss for the US.
Trump is the most 'free' President in modern history.
He has to buy the support of Congress.
He'll give appointments to people who can stand to keep agreeing with him. At least Thiel is loyal to a persistent Republican theme, which is attacking higher education.
At some point he has to. He can't just impose term limits, and as I mentioned in another thread, term limits don't restore power to the voters unless gerrymandering and voter suppression are eliminated.
I don't see how he takes power away from the tea party, and the tea party is very much a bought party.
> He'll give them to those that 'stuck by him' i.e. Guliani etc. and scorn on the old Bush guard.
"owes" man. In quotes because he doesn't have any fiscal or otherwise legal obligation to pay them back. If he largely surrounds himself with those few who supported him(opportunistically dare I say?) then it's a huge red flag in my book he isn't really going for the best advisors. I'd like to see at least a couple old detractors on the list..
This is the case with just about every politician, the campaign staff essential becomes part of the administration. Remember that he only has 8 weeks to fill hundreds of jobs in his cabinet.
My guess is that most of them will be "wildcards", people that have no political experience / ties whatsoever and were chosen because they were experts or at least moderately successful in their chosen field.
Thiel kind of fits that profile, ignoring his recent antics.
Trump never provided his tax returns for scrutiny so unlike Hillary we don't know who exactly he is beholden to. What we know from his son, sources and leaks is that Russian ogligarchs with ties to Putin do hold significant amounts of his company's debt. It is this type of "pay to play" that is far, far beyond anything that has ever been seen before.
He is audited every single year, and there is very deep scrutiny of his personal finances. There are many in the IRS who would love to find something wrong.
It's the political favours and support that mattes.
I will say this: the laws concerning 'conflict of interest' are very weak in the US for the office of the Pres. It's possible that a Malaysian leader could buy favour by offering him a future sweet deal on land for a Casino in Manila type thing. Again - I don't like Trump, and don't think he's evil and probably won't be looking for that kind of deal ... but I also bet he just might not be able to resist!
Anyhow - as of today, he owes almost nothing politically. That's what's weird about it: he's the least civic minded pres in modern history - who also is the most unencumbered! Crazy.
Taking a loan from a foreign bank is just part of doing business. Being president when a foreign bank owes a giant fine is just part of the job. Doing both of those at the same time is practically the definition of a conflict of interest.
The IRS is obligated to not reveal ANY personal information regarding a person or company's tax situation. So for all we know he has done something wrong, every year. You seem to think that being audited somehow ensures transparency. It doesn't.
And you keep making these statements about being unencumbered when it is well known that Russian ogligarchs own significant amounts of his company's debt. That is the very definition of being encumbered.
I guess if Russians were giving him very sweet terms on financing, he might be inclined to 'repay' them by loosening some foreign investment policy. Also - the US currently has a gang of Russians under severe financial control, i.e. they are not able to move a dollar out of Russia. If those guys are connected with 'Russian investors' they might try to lobby to get out of 'money jail'.
But why would his tax return shed new light on this, that his previous financial disclosure did not? Are you saying that the tax return would include detail on things like financing rates that were not mentioned in the financial disclosure? I thought it would just tell us what deductions he was taking / loopholes he was exploiting with respect to his taxes.
b) he's made maybe $50M this year and paid $0 in taxes due to write-offs in earlier years.
That would not go down well publicly.
Romney paid an effective rate of 14% on his $500K income (I think all capital gains) and that was destructive for his campaign. It just looks pretty out of touch - 99% of Americans earn less than $500K and pay far more than 14% in taxes.
So it would have been a publicity disaster, enough to hurt him badly.
Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, paid $1.94 million in federal taxes on last year's income of $13.7 million, for an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent, his campaign said Friday.
Somehow everybody always forgets this part - when you donate to charity, this is deduced from the taxable income, usually, but is not accounted for in tax rate calculation. Which means, if I earned tons of money and donated it all to charity - I'd pay 0% taxes, so people would say "why this fatcat doesn't pay any taxes even though we are paying a lot, he must be doing some shady things!".
You couldn't pay 0% in taxes, at least not solely from charitable deductions. Your charitable deductions allowed in a single tax year can't exceed 50% of adjusted gross income.
Help me figure this out. Romney earned $13.7 million and paid $1.94 million in taxes. That's 14% (1.94/13.7), but you're saying doesn't account for the charitable donations. So then the formula would be 1.94/(13.7-4), right? A 20% rate?
I agree with your point, but as a small note, the IRS limits the tax deduction for charitable donations to half of your adjusted gross income (AGI), or even lower. This is particularly relevant to people like Warren Buffett, who last year gave away 250 times more than his AGI (according to numbers he released earlier this year). He still paid taxes.
Well, OK, it was an imaginary example of course so yes, there are limits, but the point is when comparing tax rates as to how "fair" they are it is completely pointless if one forgets the charity donations. The outcome becomes completely wrong.
"fair" without some specific discussion of a viewpoint is always pointless.
Is it somehow objectively fair that Romney can give an extra ~$1.3 million dollars to some cause other than the US government? Of course not.
(I don't think it is the largest problem with the tax code, but I'm not real certain it is a good thing, the rules for determining whether a charity qualifies to receive deductible contributions effectively add a lot of complexity to the tax code)
It is a bit more complicated to that. If you gift appreciated assets rather than cash, you can avoid the capital gains tax, but still can deduct the full current market value (up to the limit).
>So it would have been a publicity disaster, enough to hurt him badly.
I think he'd just come off as an every-day man-of-the-people who understands the economic fears of rural whites but also a savvy businessman who's too smart to pay taxes like a sucker.
> "Lots of individuals who Trump "owes" through either money or support they provided to him; pure cronyism."
Trump is the most 'free' President in modern history.
He 'owes' the least, to the fewest people.
No, the people he owes just aren't other politicians.
You can't behave like this to other community members on Hacker News. It's difficult to maintain civil discourse on controversial topics, but nevertheless it's what this site is for so we have to ban accounts that won't follow the guidelines.
Except no one knows who he's beholden to in his personal dealings, and he has effectively said that he will not place Trump Enterprises into a blind trust.
What you guys are describing isn't cronyism. The definition of cronyism is, "the appointment of friends and associates to positions of authority, _without proper regard to their qualifications._"
I'm not seeing anyone arguing that Peter Theil isn't qualified.
Here, this guy. Thiel isn't qualified. He knows nothing about running a real business, just investing in them. He knows nothing about economic policy. And clearly he knows nothing about governance.
What evidence do you have that that is true? Looking at his career experience on Wikipedia suggests the exact opposite. Not to mention it's a win for LGBT causes which he is known to be a supporter of.
It's a win for LGBT causes to ally himself with somebody who believes in Conversion Therapy?
[Edit: I meant Trump, and I was wrong - see below. Technically Thiel is also allied with Pence, who does believe in Conversion Therapy, but that wasn't who I meant. I apologise]
Trump has never said he believes in conversion therapy. That is Pence, who is the vice president a position of little to no power. If you are advocating that you shouldn't ever associate with anyone who has a wrong idea about something then I think you are really wrong. Engaging people is how you change minds not shunning them because they have a factually incorrect belief or disagree with you.
However, from the same article it appears that Trump has vowed to sign the FADA, has said he supports North Carolina's anti-LGBT law, and has said he would strongly consider appointing Justices who would overrule marriage equality, which seem like legitimate causes of concern for the LGBQT community.
[Edit: Arguably Thiel is allied with Pence as well, who HAS advocated Conversion Therapy, so what I wrote was technically correct, but I did indeed mean Trump when I wrote it and I was wrong]
Ok, it is a skill keeping a train of thought going with those camera shutters going off 50 times a second. [1]
I didn't see what you saw, but Trump sure looks tired. Anyone would be, I have no idea how they keep the pace they do. Oldest President-elect in history.
My first executive order as President of the United States would be to ban camera shutters at my press conferences.
I see fidgeting, I see him not looking at the President while he's speaking (watch how the President listens). Later with Speaker Ryan, President-elect Trump kept his hands beneath the table in his lap during the press conference. This is a businessman, and it's not his first time sitting at a boardroom table. He knows to keep his hands in view, and he's tired, stressed, and showing weakness.
I assure you the President is also tired and stressed, and probably feeling pretty defeated right now. He's putting on a public face despite that, and he's doing a much better job of it than his successor.
Give it time, though. In a few weeks the President-elect will be back to his confident self.
> Dude looked humble-struck in the video today with Obama; almost worried about what he got himself into.
I bet part of that was an emotion completely absent from Trump's public persona: shame.
Trump started his political career circa 2010 as a "birther" -- going on national TV, asking for Obama's birth certificate, saying he was born in Kenya and therefore ineligible to hold office. Really racist, bottom-of-the-barrel tabloid stuff.
--
Obama was incredibly gracious the day after the election. Here he is, talking about how he's "rooting" for Trump to do well, how Trump's success as President will be the nation's success:
This also isn't the first time he's run. He ran as a reform party candidate in 2000 when he campaigned on the issues of "fair trade, eliminating the national debt, and achieving universal healthcare" he also said he wanted Oprah to be his running mate.
If he treated it like a game that you win, he won, but he can't just go home now, he's signed up to be on call 24/7. I'm not wealthy but I've treated job interviews like this and been unhappy after "winning". Now I'm highly selective about what I do. Losing such personal freedom needs someone with a real conviction about the job and stamina, he may have it, otherwise he'll be miserable. The White House probably came across as a dump compared to what he's used to.
Trump I suspect will be very similar to George W Bush.
From all accounts he simply doesn't have the intellectual stamina to handle the rigours of the job. And I don't mean that in a negative way he is just more of a hands on, energetic, get shit done sort of guy. So in order to survive he is going to delegate to people like Guilani, Christie, Gingrich, Carson etc. Some of the most shameless, self serving and unethical people around in politics.
Apparently because they supported his campaign too.. Man, it's hard to watch. I see evidence and hope very much that the pivot people thought would happen when he got the GOP nomination has happened now that he has won the White House and everything is sinking in.
I didn't support Trump for prez, but I really hope he is successful and was a little excited shortly after the shock wore off. Excited for the unknown and the prospect that he might shake up the establishment. But reading all the news about him just surrounding himself with people who took a long shot on him pre-pivot; really eating away at my silver lining.
It was clear during the debates he had little substance in the way of issue and policy awareness. He deflected, quipped and barbed to appeal to people's emotions. He needs to be surrounding himself with the best advisors and tapping the best from either side on the shoulder.
> Excited for the unknown and the prospect that he might shake up the establishment.
A lot of people say he isn't part of the establishment. The idea that someone who is rich and embedded in the media for the entire professional life is not part of the establishment is really confusing to me. Why do you have this perception? I am honestly curious.
> The idea that someone who is rich and embedded in the media for the entire professional life is not part of the establishment is really confusing to me.
People usually mean "political establishment" as "people who entered their party's youth org at 14 and since then never left working for their party". Which is bad because a politician who never had to do a real-world job in his life can neither understand nor empathize with the problems of the average population.
The realities of a politician job are wildly disconnected from a "real world" job, though. No "fire/hire at will", for example - once a politician is elected, he/she can serve the term without having to fear unemployment on the next day. No matter how he/she performs, the only way to get rid of an elected politician is criminal behaviour (and as seen with Arpaio, sometimes even openly defying judges is not a reason to be forced to quit).
In Germany, all members of parliament also get a pretty pension package - minimum of 1.682€ per month, which is FAR more than many old people ever get.
Politicians NEVER have to experience the worries of "normal people" like "how am I going to survive as a pensioner?", "how do I feed my kids when I don't have any money left?" or "how am I going to pay rent this month?" - and with a greater and greater rate of "working poor" or unemployed people, the disconnect will rise accordingly.
If being part of the 'establishment' means that you never had to worry about being fired, never had to worry about money, never had to worry about feeding your kids or paying rent -- then Trump is part of the establishment.
Being rich doesn't automatically make you part of the establishment. Leaders of the establishment are often rich as a result of their connections, but the two things are not synonymous.
Coming as someone who lived through Reagan and both Bushes, I can state with a reasonable degree of certainty that you don't know how the world works, and you're about to get a lesson. I'm not even certain you understand how the government works, since it is going to be the Republican House and Senate who are going to be drafting and sending bills for him to sign.
Simple example Obama thinks single payer health care would be the best thing. But to that they would have to almost destroy a trillion dollar industry and millions will loose jobs. So has to move with smaller steps.
Trump thinks Illegal immigrants from Mexico are taking American jobs. So he just ships them all back and closes the border(builds the wall) in one go. I don't think he will consider the fact that would destroy a lot of farms in the Midwest who are surviving because of cheap Mexican labour. And if he really wants to do something about he should go gradually about it and not put a blanket stop on it.
Some of his trade ideas are actually good will cause inflation but would probably also bring more jobs to the US.
Take a look sometime at the executive compensation that Obama's "smaller steps" provided for the insurance industry. They're definitely not lobbying against Obamacare.
I am referring to the fact that the Presidency has been described as far more an exercise in patience, absorbing information and careful deliberation than say running a typical business especially a dynamic one like Trump used to. He is by all accounts a very smart guy. But by all accounts he isn't a particularly patient one.
"1986 memo I wrote re: Art of the Deal. Trump couldn't focus for interviews. Can't focus now for debate prep" - Tony Schwartz (who wrote Art of the Deal)
And we all saw through the 3 debates that Trump started off well and then really struggled towards the end e.g.
I wonder whether you are getting voted down because you're suggesting Trump is smart, or because you're saying he's impatient.
This account [1] by the ghostwriter who wrote 'Art of the deal', who spent months with him, suggests that he is neither smart nor patient. Over his long life, starting with a very silver spoon that he wasn't able to destroy, he effectively focussed most of his energy to coming up with a couple of heuristics for making deals and communication. I get the impression he spent most of his life's effort on something that might be called 'social hacking' here.
Last time I read the constitution there was no "intellectual stamina" requirement to become the President. Also if Hillary was elected would she have surrounded herself by Gandhi-like selfless advisors?
If we're talking about believing headlines it's important to note that headlines would have had you believe that 90% of the country was going to vote for Hillary. They've been very wrong and will likely continue to be wrong until proven otherwise.
He tried to change the rules, to make it fair. They won't change it. So he played it by their stupid rules and won. Now, they're complaining that he's playing by their rules.
Wasn't Trump rallying against such crony corruption aka 'pay for play'?
He may have, but like most everything he says it needs to be understood as "post-truth", and meant for the emotional impact only -- not the actual substance.
Post-truth is pretty much Donald's lifestyle. He testified under oath that his net worth "depends on how he feels at that moment" (paraphrasing). His state of mind defines reality/truth
Yes. He lied, as many on the left said he was. Here[0], there is talk Jamie Dimon was considered by his advisors for Treasury. To be fair, Dimon declined, but it shows that Trump at least surrounds himself with people who don't give two shits about his "helping the little man."
Please drop the partisan angle on this. This isn't a left/right difference. Obama campaigned with a similar promise and he still selected lobbyists for his administration:
I never said people on the left don't do it. Yes, Obama did it too. The point is Trump isn't what he appears to be, in fact he appears very similar to Obama in the sense that he convinced many people there would be change for the better but all evidence points to that he will just perpetuate the system which he rallied against (which Obama did too).
Legitimate question: what could Obama have done better? Being Canadian I didn't take as close an interest as I would have in my own government, but it seemed from my perspective like he was doing everything he could to bring about change. The problem appeared to be that he had a very different idea of what that change should be than the Republican Congress, and short of utterly capitulating, I'm not sure how you unilaterally engender cooperation in that situation. I'm sure that I'm both biased and largely uninformed though, so I'm interested in the counter-argument.
>> Legitimate question: what could Obama have done better?
I don't know, i'm no politician; i'm just waiting on the 2008 Obama campaign promise to close Guantanamo Bay (to clarify: I mean cease black operations at that site indefinitely -- I don't have any illusions that the U.S. will stop illegal black operations internationally.).
I don't know whether or not if it's an impossibility at this point to do so; but I also believe if it is impossible it probably shouldn't have been a campaign promise used to influence voters.
He lacked sufficient Congressional support for a lot of that. And when he did release detainees? He was demonized by many (particularly from the right).
I agree with the overall message that Obama was way more establishment than he made himself seem in the campaign, but Guantanamo is a horrible example. He's consistently brought it up and fight for it, if it was an empty campaign promise he would have quietly never mentioned it again.
Impossibility can mean a couple of things - the logistical challenges of where Guantanamo prisoners should go, and the impossibility of getting it done in a Republican-controlled senate and house.
The first is in line with your point, although I think it's a reasonable assumption that Obama honestly underestimated the challenge. For the second, it's not reasonable to call it a broken promise if he made a good faith effort and was blocked by something out of his control (that he couldn't have necessarily predicted)
That doesn't at all mean no compromises were made. It would be oversimplifying and naive to assume that the only compromises made in political dealings manifested as amendments.
I'll have to re-read stuff on the ACA's passing through Congress.
But my statement about the supermajority is true. The Democrats (with Independents) had at most 60 members of the Senate (2009-2010), Republicans had from 39-42 (vacancies and other things going on).
Democrats did not have sufficient control of the Senate to guarantee they could get whatever they wanted.
Their motivation doesn't enter into it. The argument is about whether they had the power. They clearly did, and they clearly did exercise that power at a later time.
I recall one of the Republicans predicting that at some future time the Democrats were going to regret having used the nuclear option. That time is probably about right now.
I'm afraid there's no way to put that big cloud back into that shiny metal ball.
A super-majority is 3/5th or 60 senators in the US Senate, not 2/3rds. From July 2009 to January 2010, Democrats (+ Independents Sanders and Lieberman) had such a super-majority in the Senate.
Democrats in the Senate used this super-majority to pass the ACA (Obamacare) in December 2009. Technically, they used the super-majority to end the filibuster and then voted on the bill.
Can you clarify what you mean by "gone nuclear"? I'll admit, that's not ringing a bell in my mind when it comes to Congress, but it's also late here and I'm tired.
EDIT: Ah, rules changes on filibuster and such. There's no guarantee. The Republicans do only have 51 members, though, with 48 for the Democrats and (per CNN's results) 1 seat still being tallied (?).
They could change the filibuster rules and make it easier on themselves, but it's a much narrower margin than in 2009.
EDIT 2: Regarding the empty seat, that's LA. If people vote in the runoff (not still being tallied) by the same party lines, it'll likely go to the remaining Republican candidate. So it'll be 52/48. Rule changes will need Democrats on board with them, this is unlikely.
If they change it to only require simple majority then I guarantee it will never change back. Partisanship is dead. The thugs won't appoint a supreme court justice, the thugs won't appoint any other judicial appointments. This will never be forgotten and there will never be compromise again. It's obstructionism on both sides from here on out.
Why the downvote? The Dems clearly had the power to use the nuclear option (and in fact they did use it later in Obama's term, so this isn't just theoretical).
IMO the ACA was an overreach that cost him the congress in 2010 and possibly Clinton's presidency. That political capital would have been better spent on getting higher taxes at the top and fixing social security.
I think discussions about such things (e.g., the revolving door for lobbyists, where most people seem to agree that it's bad for governance) would benefit from people omitting specific party/ideology references. It just creates the potential for mis-interpretation and can result in unnecessary strife and the illusion of division for an issue that most people probably agree on. And, as @praisewhitey noted[0], people on the right probably said the same thing about Trump too. So this isn't a "the left was right this time and the right was wrong and when Obama ran the right was right and the left was wrong" division. (Though it's likely true that people are more forgiving of candidates who hold their own ideologies).
You're criticizing a presidency that hasn't even seen it's first day! All of the "evidence" also pointed to Clinton winning in a landslide, and then a stock market crash after he won... what happened? Ya. Relax.
Interesting isn't it. Just like the media, who just until 2 days ago were sure Trump will never win this one, and now are confidently telling us what the next 4 years would be.
Well I am having a blast watching CNN and NBC and I don't usually watch TV, but now I put it on for entertainment...
> I am guessing because filing a fake police report is a crime...
No. In Germany, many left-wing activists do not file police claims if they've been beaten up or assaulted by fascists. The problem is that the police gives the opposite party or at least their lawyer the full address of the victim - and these addresses tend to be aggregated and leaked on fascist blogs.
In America, where even private information such as divorce papers apparently falls under "this is a public document" rules, I wouldn't even dare calling 911, much less filing a police report.
Wow, sounds like it is bad there, it is not as bad here yet.
> The problem is that the police gives the opposite party or at least their lawyer the full address of the victim - and these addresses tend to be aggregated and leaked on fascist blogs.
Except her name is on Twitter, the full name. It is not that hard to find the address.
Let's be frank do you honestly think campus police at this university are compiling lists of leftist people to give to their "fascist" friends? And that is the reason she did not want to file a police report? Somehow you jumped over the simplest explanation - that she lied, straight to "campus police are a fascists who compile lists of people".
I think you misunderstand the fear of reprisal minorities feel. It is a truly awful feeling to not be able to either a) trust law enforcement to not dismiss you because of your minority status, or even actively repress you (black people in America experience this all the time, and now Muslims too); or b) not be able to approach law enforcement because you're worried that there will be more of a backlash from allies of your attackers. Consider all the women who accused Trump of assaulting them and then received death threats for themselves and their families from all over the country.
And just in general: the lady's a minority, and from a minority that is very much under pressure these days, thanks to a President-elect whose platform was built on a platform that attacked her, her family, and her friends for their religion. Considering all of that, give her the benefit of the doubt.
Good points, I agree about fear of not being take seriously. Active repression and reprisals are real too and you're right the Black community has been suffering that for many years. Due to Youtube and everyone carrying smartphones it has become more known later.
> Consider all the women who accused Trump of assaulting them and then received death threats for themselves and their families from all over the country.
Good point again. I agree in general it is a very justified fear.
However in this particular case it is the campus police of a university. That is not the same as Chicago PD (who have been known to torture people) or NYPD. This is a police force that is employed by the University. Having gone to a US university and dealt with campus police (they helped me return a stolen phone) I have a bit of a first hand experience with them. I think no mater who the victim is, and no matter their political views, it would be bad for them, their employer, the whole community to have kids stabbed on campus. Or have anyone take revenge and assault them.
So it looks extremely suspicious based on the specifics. And if it is fake, that was an incredibly stupid idea. It disqualifies and puts under suspicion real cases of assault and abuse.
I agree that it if it is a fake incident, it would be awful and would disqualify real issues. I'm not sure what the background of this girl is (maybe she's an immigrant who's only heard bad things about the police, campus or otherwise? maybe she's terrified and just wants to put it behind her, instead of necessarily pursuing justice?) but I do think it would be better to give her the benefit of the doubt unless it's proven conclusively that she faked it.
I know that typically in courts the accuser has to prevent positive evidence, but this is a traumatizing time for minorities - let the court of public opinion at least not rush to brand her as a faker, at least in part because if it is real, doing so will only exacerbate her trauma.
> Let's be frank do you honestly think campus police at this university are compiling lists of leftist people to give to their "fascist" friends?
No, you misunderstood me. The police simply pass on the details of the accuser to the accused's legal defense and in most cases the accused himself. Of course, fascists share data obtained by this route (and the lefties obviously do the same). It's a doxx-war.
I am sorry, I imagine it would be possible in Germany. Even if I try, I don't see University of Illinois campus police doing it. I see them not taking her seriously (but why wouldn't they? it would be terrible for their jobs to have customers there getting stabbed).
But them being members of a fascist party and compiling lists, as hard as I try, I don't see happening.
Her name is in plain sight on Twitter. If she was afraid of reprisals why would she post it on Twitter with her full name?
Isn't something as simple as it being fake a more plausible explanation?
I just scrolled around randomly and one of the moments is a group of young black men kicking an old white man [0]. I'm not sure what the message is here but it seems likely that the collators are playing fast and loose to pile the evidence on
Tom Wheeler has done his job just fine, and not shown any preference to his old industry. For all we know Obama made a great choice based on his character.
I should have revised it to "many" fullstop. I just wanted to use a word that meant many people without making it sound something like, "informed sources say...". The point is many public figures and thinkers distrusted Trump's rhetoric.
I'm not sure what he promised or where the contradiction is, but Jamie Dimon would be a very strong advisor. I think he's considered one of the smartest of the leaders of the wall street banks, and JP Morgan was one of the few banks that was strong going into 2008. I wasn't a Trump supporter, but that at least shows good judgment to me.
Thiel is an experienced, proven, intelligent, capable technologist and gay man. If there's someone better who didn't donate $1m fine, but it seems like Thiel would be qualified for his cabinet and we might want to give him a shot be condemning him.
You have to realize Trump complained about the "rigged" Republican primary and then after he won he literally said it doesn't matter anymore because he won. Means to an end kind of guy.
"pay per play" is the game he has always played, that's why people like him can be fined for the many of his scandals[0] but still end up profitable in the long shot.
You are aware that Trump contradicted himself every time he opened his mouth, right? Is there any reason to believe this will be the one time when he's self-consistent?
He is certainly shrewd. Regardless of some of his views I disagree with, I guess I do now hope that he becomes an advisor to Trump because at least some of his friends are people I respect. And there's a good chance someone else that Trump/the GOP might choose instead would be even worse than Thiel.
Also, having an openly gay advisor gives some hope that Trump might stand up to the anti-LGBT majority of the Republican party, perhaps even nominate a supreme court justice that doesn't want to overturn marriage equality.
Thiel having called climate change pseudoscience as recently as 2 years ago on the other hand, and having actually acted on the authoritarian impulses he shares with Trump to shut down media organizations out of revenge, is not encouraging.
To be fair, for Thiel $1M is practically nothing, basically just a token gesture. His press conference speech probably commanded 10x that in airtime value.
> I'm sure he'll see a very significant ROI on his $1M once the government starts awarding contracts very conveniently to companies of which he owns a portion.
That's just pure speculation because you do not like Trump or his policies.
Thiel is a very good person to advise on the tech sector and which direction technology might lead society to since he obviously called many major developments and made huge profits on these bets.
Thiel also happens to align with the Republicans on certain issues so why should Trump not ask for his advise or Thiel offer advise?
It's great that a true Libertarian like Thiel even gets the chance to influence the direction of the government.
Prove it. Let's see some tax returns. In the absence of evidence, it is reasonable to assume that he is heavily in debt with no liquid assets and effectively poor.
He paid a 7 dollar boy scout fee for his son from his "charity."
His personal plane is a 757, and his office is in his own skyscraper...
He obviously has a lot of wealth. How much is liquid isn't really relevant, his 'income' isn't relevant, with the ultra-rich all that really ever matters is 'net worth'.
You think someone in debt would be smart enough to prod half the country as sheep into voting for him? Ha. America got trolled and was given the middle finger. We get it, you're upset. But listen to what the Democrat thought leaders are saying: stop dividing the country with your continued rhetoric in your comment.
- Software engineer at Google in Mountain View, California
Trump has been bankrupt four times and relies heavily on debt to finance his real estate ventures. It's well documented that he took on hundreds of millions of debt in the form of "junk bonds" (so called because of the high risk of default and the resulting high interest rate - 14%) in order to pay for his casinos in Atlantic city, for example. He defaulted on many of those obligations, in some cases ultimately paying only pennies on the dollar. This is what Trump is talking about when he says things like "I love debt." Because of some tax loopholes for real estate investors that existed at the time (they were closed in the 90's under Clinton, actually), he was also allowed to claim the losses as his own, rather than those of his creditors - that's how he managed to claim nearly a $1 billion net operating loss in a single year.
Piecing together information from his financial disclosures (total revenue) and leaked documents (revenue net expenses), it appears at least one of his properties in NY has been modestly successful in recent years - but that property had well below $5 million in profit in 2014 and was losing money before that. We know nothing at all about his personal obligations to creditors. That lack of information, along with his refusal to release his tax returns, is what has lead to so much speculation about what may be in those returns.
> Several of Trump's corporations have been bankrupt 4 times...
FTFY.
> relies heavily on debt to finance his real estate ventures
Real estate has high start-up costs but holds lots of value. Debt is the perfect vehicle to finance real estate, ever wonder why most people take out mortgages to buy homes, but give up equity to fund tech start-ups? You use the investment vehicle that makes sense for the type of business.
> It's well documented that he took on hundreds of millions of debt in the form of "junk bonds" (so called because of the high risk of default and the resulting high interest rate - 14%) in order to pay for his casinos in Atlantic city, for example.
Of course, casinos are high risk. Bond rates depend on risk. Also, most business debt requires a higher rate than say, sovereign debt.
> it appears at least one of his properties in NY has been modestly successful in recent years - but that property had well below $5 million in profit in 2014 and was losing money before that.
And? With real estate you don't need profit, you just need to build equity.
Tl;dr: Real estate isn't like other businesses, it has its own set of rules, accounting and financial practices, etc... Just like tech companies are different from factories which are different from restaurants, real estate is (gasp) different...
I was responding to the parent comment which claimed Trump was unlikely to be in debt. I don't think I criticized the use of debt as an investment vehicle for real estate, per se - my goal was to lay out a few facts about Trump's past business practices and the reasons why people are interested in his tax returns and concerned about possible conflicts of interest. You're right that debt is an excellent vehicle for real estate investment. I have a mortgage - it would be pretty hypocritical of me to disagree.
The vehicle for the conflict of interest isn't what's interesting. I would still be concerned if a tech founder with a bunch of unknown private investors were to be elected to public office. More concerned if that founder refused to release any information about those investors, the amounts invested, or cap table. Even more concerned if that founder refused to put their stake in the company in a blind trust.
Many of our laws and the powers we grant our public officials rely on the assumption that someone who is in high public office got there for reasons other than to enrich themselves. In Trump's case, he may have other motives, but he's flaunted historical precedent in not releasing his tax returns or even attempting to remove the appearance of conflict of interest. Whatever you think of Clinton's relationship to the Clinton Foundation, we have the data because it was all publicly disclosed. We know nothing about Trump.
I think if you give an unconscionable liar a megaphone and don't challenge him on his lies, he can get the poorly educated to buy into those lies. I also think that if you get told repeatedly that there's a terrorist threat just waiting to kill you and there are poor migrants waiting to take your money and your culture, that you might be inclined to just take that at face value after a while.
The onus is on him to stop inciting (and personally inflicting) violence against women, Muslims, Latinos, and more. That's what's dividing the country. I'm not going to rely on Democrats to lead any kind of thought until they grow a backbone.
Care to be specific? What do you consider to be "inciting violence"? Actual, explicit endorsement of violence; or just something interpreted as sexist/racism, that might then embolden people to commit these acts?
Thank you for that article. I shall read it in depth later, but a cursory glance suggests that Mr Thiel believes, as many do, that freedom means not being compelled to help his fellow humans, or even his own immediate society, by taxation or any other means.
The article also has a very alarming quote:
"The fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person who builds or propagates the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe for capitalism."
What happened to making the world safe for people?
Nothing in that post explains why Thiel is a climate change denier. The only thing I see that could be construed that way is that he said it hasn't gotten warmer the last 15 years. It depends on when Thiel made that statement whether it was true or not at the time. The warming that occurred over the last year meant that there was statistically significant warming, but before about February the warming over the last 15 years was not statistically significant.
At worst getting the facts wrong by a few months doesn't make Thiel a climate change denier.
What's with posting links with a timestamp skipping the overall context?
Yeah, watch from t=0 the whole 3 minutes and 42 seconds. I don't hear anything shocking. It's not so much a rebuke of climate change, it's a rebuke of political correctness and the inability to have a debate.
"The right thing". Tolerance means recognizing that people have different world views than your own.
Sometimes the people you do business with have political opinions you don't agree with. The melodrama over Thiel's political opinions is pointless. If you demand Thiel steps down, are you personally just going to stop doing business with 49% of the country that voted differently?
Personally I lean liberal, but I'm pretty disgusted with all the theatrics I've seen in this election from the left. The Trump phenomenon arguably occurred because half the country felt ostracized and decided to lob a brick through the window of washington in the form of donald trump. Maybe we should all get to understand our neighbors instead of doubling down on us-vs-them tribalism.
Tolerance means you aren't jailing people with different views than your own. Tolerance means you aren't out beating people up for having different views. Tolerance isn't about putting on a happy face and doing business with someone whose views you find odious.
If people are no longer free to use words or social stigma to advance their views and opinion, because "tolerance," then what do we have left?
I think most people would equate "tolerance" with "non-antagonizing" in the general case. It's hard to claim that actively antagonizing & stigmatizing somebody for their beliefs (not just reasonably arguing against the beliefs themselves) counts as tolerant of others' beliefs.
It exactly means that no matter how subjectively and personally odious somebody's beliefs are to you, you can still respect their personhood, and evaluate any associated business & products at face value.
"Tolerance" does not mean enforcement for or against selected beliefs. Waging a stigmatizing crusade against a belief is enforcement.
The moment you think you can deem and enforce absolute right & wrong upon others, you open yourself up to it happening to you without defense. That is not the path of liberty.
Of course I get to deem and enforce what I think is right and wrong, using tools like words and association.
What on earth kind of law do you want to set up where I can't preferentially trade with people whose opinions I like, or preferentially not trade with people whose opinions I don't?
Again, tolerance means I don't want to imprison or kill people with distasteful opinions; it doesn't mean I have to like them or their distasteful opinions.
People can be bigots, they can be jerks. Go nuts, folks, be bigots or jerks, I don't care. But I'm not going to trade with bigots or jerks, I'm not going to hire them, and I'm sure as hell not going to say "hey, you're a bigot and a jerk but tolerance so let's have a beer".
Some people have no place in my life, and the beliefs they hold are a big determining factor in that decision. If they really wanna be my friend or business partner, they can change their beliefs.
> Some people have no place in my life, and the beliefs they hold are a big determining factor in that decision.
That is pretty much the definition of not tolerating a person, to remove a person from your life, not tolerating having their existence in your sphere. If it's mostly based on their beliefs, then it's an example of not tolerating that belief.
You're perfectly fine to do that, as people do, but then you can't claim that you're tolerant of others' beliefs just because you happen not to be killing or imprisoning them.
> it doesn't mean I have to like them or their distasteful opinions.
Tolerance does NOT mean liking them! I keep hearing false dichotomy over and over. To be decent and civil to a person, to tolerate their beliefs existing around you, does not require condoning them. It's simply being a decent human being and not being an overprovoked reactionary, intolerantly policing all others around themselves, determining what others are not allowed to be like.
There are beliefs that it is fair to reasonably argue with and then there are statements that defy common decency. At some point offensive statements should be shunned, not engaged with.
Why the implicit equation of "words" with "shouting at people that they're bad"? (Or at least, that's how I'm reading your comment based on the context.)
The alternative is actual argument rather than punishment, something overgard in no way ruled out.
...which unfortunately may not be a great tool given the current situation. I think we are at the point where playing nice may no longer be a serious option.
But that doesn't mean we should just, lke, punish all the bad people because they're bad people. That still isn't helpful. It just feels good, it doesn't necessarily accomplish anything.
Still. We're in a situation now where argument is unlikely to get us anywhere -- but in better times, that's the ideal, not using words to punish people.
Also, there is the fact that Trump isn't Pinochet. At this stage, he's not even Bill Clinton (pushed the party hard to the right, locked up hundreds of thousands of poor black people to court skittish suburbanites). He'll get there but he's a pure virgin soul compared to pretty much any modern President besides Carter.
> locked up hundreds of thousands of poor black people to court skittish suburbanites
That's an utterly meaningless comparison. Bill Clinton was a governor with terrible policies concerning minorities [1], while Donald Trump was a real estate mogul with terrible policies concerning minorities. The fact that their different leadership positions meant that Trump could harm a statistically fewer number of people means exactly nothing.
"Didn't lock up any black people" isn't exactly an achievement for someone who hasn't served in government.
[1]: I agree with you that Bill Clinton deserves to be held completely accountable for his actions as Arkansas governor.
Letting people get away with harmful practices is a bad idea. Extending that from theft to politics is a very reasonable thing to do.
People prentend that politics is a purely abstract thing, but consider. Bush is directly responsible for well over 500,000 deaths. The blood of his victims is directly on the hands of everyone that voted for the idiot. Trump might not be as bad or he might start WWIII.
Tolerance is compassion. It means seeking the deeper truth beneath the words and actions, to understand the fundamental reasons.
It's true that few of us have the time and energy to dig through all the bullshit and achieve understanding of everyone we find abhorrent.
But where we are able to do so, we usually learn some important things about others and about ourselves - mostly, that when it comes down to it, we all just want to feel safe and loved.
True compassion is hard, but unless we can offer it to others, we can't expect it to be offered back to us.
This is based on the assumption that understanding someone is enough to accept them. I disagree, cannibalism is just one example of things people do where understanding and accepting are very different.
PS: Some people really don't care about safety others don't care about love.
Of course there are extremes. The Gaussian distribution is a natural phenomenon. But this discussion is about the ~50% of voters who supported Trump, because rightly or wrongly, they believe his leadership will provide them with a safer and more prosperous future than those of the alternative candidate.
You can disagree with their decision whilst still empathising with their reasons. Indeed you must, if you're ever going to persuade anyone to change their position.
Though you're poisoning the discussion by invoking cannibalism, it's easy to see that in primitive societies where it was accepted, it was due to a need for safety (from hunger) and love (from participating a communal ritual). Of course we find it abhorrent now, I certainly do. But I can understand why it would have been acceptable to people in a time and place where there seemed no alternative.
Equally, we would all hope and expect that where others find our opinions and actions abhorrent (and in a huge and diverse world, someone always will), that they will seek understanding before abusing or marginalising us.
> PS: Some people really don't care about safety others don't care about love.
When I've actually dug deeply into that question, I've never found it to be true. The people who, on the surface, seem not to care about being loved, actually turn out to be the ones who crave it the most. Just look into the life story of any psychopath or tyrant, and you'll inevitably find stories of abuse and/or emotional neglect in childhood.
Cannibalism is actually really dangerous due to disease, so it's a negative in terms of safety.
In terms of trump voters, I don't care about their reasons. And I am not trying to convince them. They made the world significantly less safe, putting literally billions of people at risk. That's just not cool, still as a well off person I don't need to care it's probably not going to get me killed.
As to love, some people flat out can't feel pain. Some, have more than one set of DNA. That's just 2 examples, but humans have a lot more variety than most people think about. Being an outlier and being famous are really separate things.
Humanity has many systems of tricking people to do various things harming their own self interest, but saying what people believe has any inherent value is a huge mistake. Trump getting elected is going to kill many (though hopefully a small percentage) of his supporters, but many of them don't see a problem with this.
Trying to be a hero running into a hail of bullets it stupid. But, hundreds of millions of young men have repeatedly done so. Watching a war movie most people cheer such stupidity on as a good thing continuing this cycle.
PS: Many people hate this but even a single counter example absolutely disproves what you say. Yet, convicting people to believe lies has long had value to a great many people, so pointing this out is generally a waste of time. People even react negatively to the truth note all the down votes for polite on topic responses.
Yes, because it's definitely always only the other people's perceptions and judgments that are flawed, never one's own. Because history shows that's always the way the most intelligent and wise people think.
Your first two sentences are just vague accusations with no real substance. Sure, some trump supporters are violent bullies. Some clinton supporters are violent bullies too. I've seen both occur this election.
There's a difference between "advancing your views" and "demanding someone get fired because they disagree with your views". See? If you want to call Thiel a dickhead for his support, feel free, you even have my agreement. But this is the CLASSIC go-to-move of overzealous social justice creeps, to demand banishment of the person for thought-crimes.
>>If people are no longer free to use words or social stigma to advance their views and opinion, because "tolerance," then what do we have left?
I agree with you. But we cannot disregard the dishonest behaviour performed by most leftists/liberals over the years. The leftists/liberals hurl so much social stigma against the republicans/Christianity but they dishonestly and criminally keep mum about e.g. Islam. Sam Harris and Bill Maher have pointed this out beautifully at [1] and [2].
The leftists have never allowed anyone to socially stigmatize Muslims about their faith in the very vicious, barbaric and most importantly "the most intolerant" ideology of Islam. So now this has came around them.
Mainstream left/liberal camp is completely dishonest about its take on the issue of intolerance of Islam.
Sadly but not surprisingly people like Trump will succeed to exploit such thing.
The saner people in the left should reflect on this dishonest behaviour of the mainstream/vocal leftists and must do something about it, else the intolerance will just grow.
>>To claim that Islam is somehow innately "vicious" or "barbaric" is just insulting.
First a question: Insulting to whom?
If you think it is insulting to Muslims, then I disagree. It may be offensive to some Muslims. Will criticizing Nazism be considered as insulting (to Germans)?
The 'brick through the window' analogy is one of the most apt I've heard so far given the increasingly violent tendency of 'protesters' in this country.
The guys who wrote the universal declaration of human rights seem to disagree with you.
"Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."
"All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination."
Yeah I'm not saying people with abhorrent opinions don't deserve human rights. That doesn't mean tolerance is all about being cool with your hypothetical Nazi neighbor. I'm pretty sure whoever came up with that declaration would be with me on the part where we aren't cool w/ Nazis.
Tolerance would still mean that if Nazi neighbor needs help with his lawnmower, that you don't have a problem giving him a hand.
Don't throw away people's humanity because of one aspect you don't like about them. Even if they're your enemy. Seriously, differences are being treated like kindergarten cooties here. You don't catch Naziism by being civil to your neighbor, and we need civility overall.
But here's a problem: Everybody is labeling everybody else as effectively Nazis for any minor or major difference, thus justifying all civility being withdrawn.
No and never. Tolerance means I don't shoot him for being a Nazi, even if I would like to. I can earnestly hope his lawnmower takes off a hand and that his cholesterol levels are none too good, and I remain tolerant of him. Toleration has nothing to do with being nice, it has to do with a recognition of legal status and human rights. Fuck your hypothetical Nazi and fuck his lawnmower.
What you describe is functionally the tacit endorsement of abhorrent views. Every moment of every day is political; act like it or don't, but you can't change that it is true.
If you replace "Nazi" with another word starting with N, you sound like a person from not too long ago talking about legal status and human rights as well. This has nothing to do with Nazis, it's a question of principle. Principles don't special case particular targets, they either stand or not. Substituting a different target certainly makes you sound like those you're railing against in the first place. Nazis are just an easy target.
> What you describe is functionally the tacit endorsement of abhorrent views. Every moment of every day is political; act like it or don't, but you can't change that it is true.
This is the root of the polarization that is tearing everything apart. The only life you'd be happy to live is one where you're only surrounded by those who are not "politically" divergent from you? Politicizing everything puts you at a fundamentalist war with everything.
This is demonstrably anti-freedom, and intolerance of the existence of differences. Sure, you can promote destroying differences that you don't like (I was going to say "political differences", but that's moot according to your outlook of all differences being political), but you're really speaking against fundamental tenets of western society so it becomes functionally moot.
The flip was equating it to perpetrating a genocidal ideology, with the same argument as used in lashing out against its perpetrators, because that's exactly the same stuff that's going through a genocidal maniac's head (or at least coming out of their mouths). But all my points stand.
It's too easy to label somebody a Nazi (or whatever label enables you), eliminate all civility and humanity from them, wish them nothing but death, and consider yourself righteous and tolerant for it.
It is better to err on the side of treating bad people with more respect than they deserve, than to err on the side of treating decent people with more hate than they deserve. Because your judgment of how bad or decent they are is at the very best based on incomplete information in the first place. Erring on the side of hate directly makes the world a worse place, and erring on the side of respect makes the world a more civil place.
The argument of "they're out to eradicate me and people like me" works better against Nazis because they're documented to have been doing that at scale. It doesn't work so well against people who've traditionally been on the receiving side of that sort of thing.
It's all fun and games to treat people with respect if you have nothing to fear from them and it lets you feel morally superior and all that, but at some point you gotta recognize that some people are right to be concerned and work against their persecution.
Again, taking an argument and misusing it doesn't actually weaken the original argument. It's possible for the perpetrators and the victims of genocide to use the exact same rhetoric against each other, but then it's on you to figure out who's being full of shit and not go "maybe the truth is in the middle between genocide and escaping a genocide".
I'm not throwing away the humanity of Nazis. I'm acknowledging that their goal in life is to eradicate me and people like me, and that anything I can do to slow them down might save a life at some point. Time spent fixing the lawnmower is spent not agitating to have people tortured.
Tolerating certain politics as just "differences" in opinion is a luxury for people for whom politics are an intellectual exercise and maybe impact their bank statement at the end of the year, it's not affordable for those for whom it's a question of survival.
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
> There is tolerance and then there are things that are not open to discussion
So what's not "open to discussion"? It seems like fundamentally everything about this election has been open to discussion, it's been a weird fucking election. Are you literally saying supporting Trump is a crime so bad that it's not "open to discussion"?
"The line tends to shift as society progresses." You talk about this "line" as if it's a real thing. Let me pose a fairly obvious question, in almost any time period, who imposed the limits of "what is not open to discussion", and what were their motives? Keep in mind, things that are obviously true don't need to be "not open to discussion", because nobody is bothering to discuss them.
How does this work in practice? This is something I've been thinking about and am struggling with. What if people don't agree with you and feel the same way about things not being open to discussion? Compromise? Split off into smaller and smaller groups that agree with each other? Refuse to work together? Shun? Shame? Resort to violence?
I'm serious. I don't have a good answer. I think it depends on the issue, but I know people are going to draw their lines differently. Thoughts?
I think in practice you might be Brendan Eich, donate to an anti same-sex marriage PAC, find that your work community does not feel gay marriage should be open to discussion and are out of a job as CEO of Mozilla.
Ok. Would you clarify who the "you" refers to? I'm not sure if you're referring to me, Peter Thiel, or some general person who doesn't hold the same views as you.
Thanks for clarifying. I was aware it could have different meanings and just wanted to make sure. And thanks for responding to the original question. I think the issue is a lot more complex than can be extrapolated from a single example. Like I said, it's something I've been thinking about, some heuristic or guideline that can be applied to more than just this particular situation. I wish I had a grip on a better answer. Watching people go at each other on Hacker News has been hard.
Serious question: is there any action he could take, any line he could cross, literally anything he could do or say that would ever, in your mind, be sufficient to justify refusing to associate with him?
> people you do business with have political opinions you don't agree with
Yes, they do. However, opinions and material support are different things.
> are you personally just going to stop doing business with 49% of the country that voted differently?
Expressing your opinion with a vote and funding a campaign with >$1M are not anywhere close to equivalent.
> half the country felt ostracized and decided to lob a brick through the window of washington
That's exactly what happened, as expected[1]. Unfortunately, most people were more interested in playing political games or blaming their favorite scapegoat.
I'd blame the democrats alone (the party, leadership, delegates, superdelegates and a section of voters + ~~liar~~ media) for giving away the presidency to Trump. For free, literally.
How is Peter Thiel or anyone else (Trump's supporters) responsible for what comes out of the man's mouth when at the same time the other party is clearly doing what's downright corruption/stifling a democratic nomination?
ICYMI, Peter Thiel did mention that he'd have preferred a race between Sanders and Trump instead (watch his interview to the press club) -- where he quotes: "because they get it" -- and that Trump gets the big things right even though his behavior isn't acceptable.
I don't see any reason for YC or any other organization to follow through with your advice. It is also mind numbing that a portion of democrats who made a joke of Trump when he said "he will accept the results only if he wins" are unable to accept the result of the election themselves.
Move on folks, open your ears and do your job.
On downvotes: I'm pretty sure downvoting over here is symptomatic behavior of a community that doesn't like to listen. Thank you for proving the point. I am happy that Trump is leading us and he is the elected premier for this country despite his weaknesses.
Each of us are responsible for their own vote. Nobody made you vote for Trump. I blame the people who voted for Trump for making him President. After all, we are all adults here, and although Trump never accepts any responsibility for his actions I think that the Trump supporters accept that they voted for him.
So yeah, blaming the Democrats for the Trump presidency is an oxymoron.
Clinton and her machine threw the only candidate who could beat Trump under the bus. She deserves her loss, and should apologize to the American people for prioritizing her selfish ambition over the good of the country.
Hopefully the Democrats learn about running someone electable before 2018. I have already prepared my donation fund for Bernie Sanders' or Tulsi Gabbard's 2020 presidential race (and I'll not vote again in 4 years if the Dems run yet another establishment candidate, learn your lesson already).
Your chance for your opinion to matter was when the primaries took place. Don't save your outrage for after it doesn't go the way you wanted.
More Democrats voted and caucused for her than for Bernie. I don't know where the notion that his nomination was stolen comes from other than maybe Trump himself.
Independents, needed to win the general, were not permitted to participate in several major Democratic primaries. Those Independents did not go for Clinton (clearly). Nor did Millennials, who also sat out for Clinton.
If you need people outside your party to vote for you, you don't restrict caucusing to just your party. Otherwise, you get the proverbial brick in the face. Must be a terrible legacy to lose to the person that makes up Trump in front of the entire world, that people said to themselves "Yes, he's a bigot, a xenophobe, a sexist; but he's not Clinton" as they voted.
@fatbird: I'm unsure why we're still arguing about this. Clinton lost because she did not have enough support, period.
Primary rules aren't decided on a case-by-case, election by election basis, and they're not a strategic tool for positioning oneself for the general campaign. They're an internal process that is supposed to be consistent and knowable beforehand--and the reason Obama was able to upset Hillary in 2008 was because his campaign bothered to learn the rules for all 50 primaries/caucuses, while hers didn't.
Of course they were: Bernie wasn't a Democrat until he ran for the nomination, why would they want to help an outsider become head of the party (aka the nominee?)
And it's not like we don't have an example of a candidate that rode popular outrage to a comfortable nomination victory with the entire weight of the party elites trying to sink him. It's clearly not that hard if you find the right message and the time is right.
But then nobody hacked the RNC's emails. Who knows what's in those.
That is your opinion and you are entitled to it but I disagree. Put Hillary in a balance with Trump and by far she is the better candidate. When people are willing to believe in the Father of Lies, even after you show them recorded evidence, they are a lost cause. It is really hard to cure willful ignorance. Hillary has also lied, I admit it, but it is not even on the same league of Trump.
The Democrats' fault (and mine too) was in believing that people of the United States were better than this.
Up to this point I used to honestly believe that justice always prevailed, some how. That the morality of the people of the United States was strong. Stupid, idealistic, naive me. I really hurts my heart but at least my eyes have been opened. You can do almost anything you want, lie with impunity, grab woman by the pus*y, assault them, defraud people, etc. etc. and as long as you have money and good connections it is very likely you will get away with it.
It is a hard pill to swallow, but at least I've learned my lesson and will live accordingly.
And of course, if the republicans again destroy the economy like Bush did in 2008 everybody will comeback crying to the Democrats to fix it and then blame them for everything once things are going OK again.
> Put Hillary in a balance with Trump and by far she is the better candidate
Then why am I dealing with "President-elect" Donald Trump?
> The Democrats' fault (and mine too) was in believing that people of the United States were better than this.
Nooooooo, your fault was not understanding what millions of Americans are going through that would force them to vote for the opponent. The blame lies solely with that mindset.
You expected people to put social issues ahead of their anxiety over economic survival. How ignorant is that idea? If you do not reflect, if you do not get comfortable with the idea of compromise and understanding those who did not vote the way you wanted, you will be doomed to fail.
> Then why am I dealing with "President-elect" Donald Trump?
Because the candidate who LOST the popular vote won the electoral college, so his fewer votes were better allocated, as it turned out. He won fair and square, but it's beyond idiotic to pretend that nominating Hillary was somehow a gift of the presidency to Trump. According to insiders, even Trump thought he was losing going into election night.
>>Then why am I dealing with "President-elect" Donald Trump?
Because half the people of the United States are hypocrites with no strong moral compass. It is not politically correct to say it but it is true. I didn't think so before this but I know so now.
>>Nooooooo, your fault was not understanding what millions of Americans are going through that would force them to vote for the opponent. The blame lies solely with that mindset.
That is a lie. A good chunk of the trump supporters are actually well off. [1]
> Because half the people of the United States are hypocrites with no strong moral compass. It is not politically correct to say it but it is true. I didn't think so before this but I know so now.
Prepare to lose a lot of battles in your life with this mindset.
EDIT (because HN throttling and I can't reply):
Don't waste the opportunity to grow as a person from this if it so strongly effects you. You don't say "fuck half of America, I'm right and they're wrong." You say, "Half of America voted for this person, this person who I strongly disagree with. Why? What motivated this? What can we do in the future to work together to ensure a better outcome?"
You ask questions. You collaborate. You compromise. In that order.
One of the reasons Trump won is that a lot of people in this country feel like they're being smugly dismissed every time they open their mouths. That the "elites" have no interest in getting to know them, understanding their problems, or building a society that is inclusive of them. They're used to being lectured by people who don't even know them, who think their entire community is insignificant and irrelevant and backwards and stupid. They're used to being called "white trash" and worse, just for existing.
I'm #NeverTrump. He's a horrible human being. I wish he had never sniffed the presidency. I fear for the safety of my transgender friends. But Trump won't be stopped if we lie to ourselves about why people support him, if we tell comforting but false stories about how everyone who supports him is just stupid, racist, sexist, or self-hating. The only way to stop him is to understand why we weren't able to stop him this time, which means understanding what the people who voted for him want that the "establishment" is failing to take seriously.
So, just to be clear, I agree with you completely, one hundred percent. But in the last couple of days, reflecting on the phenomenon you're observing, and trying to figure out why I become so frustrated, I've realized you could flip that around completely, with very negligible edits:
"... a lot of people in this country feel like they're being smugly dismissed every time they open their mouths. That the 'white trash' have no interest in getting to know them, understanding their problems, or building a society that is inclusive of them. They're used to being lectured by people who don't even know them, who think their entire community is insignificant and irrelevant and backwards and stupid. They're used to being called 'elites' and worse, just for existing."
The smugness of the liberal establishment bothers me, and is one reason I didn't vote for Clinton. But I find myself a recipient on the opposite end of that bigotry line all the time also. Not sure what to do with that observation, but it's very salient to me. Explaining it doesn't make it ok, I suppose, or something along those lines.
A partial answer comes from something I've sometimes heard said about racism (which I don't fully agree with, but I recognize as having some value): that when those with less power disdain those with more power, it's not as bad as when those with more power disdain those with less power.
Concretely: Tuesday is the first time in a long time that many "elites" have had their lives affected by "white trash". But "white trash" pretty much constantly live with the results of tax, trade, and health care policies enacted by "elites". IMO "and they don't like you very much either" hurts more in the second case -- it almost always hurts more for those on the losing end of the power dynamic.
I do not understand your logic. Why? The more you know the better. And this is something that I did not know before. As I already mentioned before, I was stupid and idealistic. This experience has made me a lot more cynical.
It has probably made me a bit worse of a person, unfortunately.
Trump has proven that you can say anything and as long as you have power or you tell people what they want to hear it does not matter so what are you talking about?
Here's an olive branch, it's a linear combination. Look at the numbers, yes a large portion supported Trump out of desperation, but Clinton got 6M votes less than Obama. That says it all, people couldn't be motivated to vote.
Please, for our sake that we can rebuild in 2020 from what little we have left of our country, do look around and realize that the DNC had alot to do with why Trump won.
I prefer to believe that half of the people of the United States want to come together to build a better nation.
Edit: Hello downvoters. At almost the very top of his speech Trump specifically said he was reaching out to people who didn't support him, for guidance and help in unifying and improving the country.
Trump's prepared to work with you on unity, are you prepared to work with him? For better or worse dismissing him will not get your views heard, neither will calling him and his supporters names.
Sanders issued a statement saying “To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.”
Obama and Hillary said, let's give him a chance and wait and see.
That does not seem unreasonable.
I'm sure there are at least a handful of Trump policies that you can support and agree with (see for example his ethics in government reform policy).
I know it's pedantic, but barely half the eligible electorate bothered to vote. And half of them elected Trump. We have no idea what the other half were doing or thinking, and can only guess they did not feel compelled to participate.
> Have you not been putting attention? He lies, lies, and lies to cover the lies and people do not care.
People don't care because they expect politicians to lie. Hillary had her fair share of lies also. So we need a different yardstick to judge candidates beyond he/she lies.
With regards to paying attention, I have been paying attention to this entire campaign and while paying attention I noticed that the version of Trump I saw in that speech was very different from the version of Trump that was portrayed in the media during the entire election campaign - from words to demeanor to tone.
It wasn't just a small difference either, it was a stark difference. This means one of two things:
1) After winning a mandate (presidency, house, senate) that validated his entire campaign message, he decided to switch tactics and tone and give up bigotry and hatred in favour of unity.
Or
2) The way he was portrayed by the media during the campaign was inaccurate, and his message has been one of unity and nation building all along.
There is significant amount of evidence to show the latter, but either choice bodes well for the future.
I'd put it at about 75% (1) (and we'll see how long that switch lasts; I really hope he manages to keep it up, although experience makes it difficult to be too optimistic) and 25% (2). The media really wanted stories about what a horrific boor Trump was. I expect they were good for clicks, and also I'm sure the vast majority of the college educated, urban members of the media honestly believed, as I do, that Trump wasn't fit for the Presidency, and wanted to convey that to others. A lot of the time he obliged; sometimes he didn't, and so they stretched to make it fit. ("Kicking out" the mother and baby from the speech was one of the most egregious examples.) Ultimately they did their own cause a disservice, as many people wrote off all Trump reporting as biased, and he ended up getting away with a great deal that he shouldn't have.
I watched his acceptance speech live and was mildly encouraged. I still have grave doubts, but since there's no going back, all we can do now is make the best of it.
> "Kicking out" the mother and baby from the speech was one of the most egregious examples.
That was one example of stretching things to make them fit, others included:
* Trump wants to build a database of Muslims (if you look at the transcripts it was actually the reporters suggesting this, not Trump, Trump moved on to talking about something else (the wall) and the reporter kept asking questions and took his replies as if he was talking about the database).
* Trump mocked a disabled reporter (the reporter's disability was completely different from the impersonation Trump did but coincidentally a freeze frame from the video had a pose similar to a picture of the reporter. So either he knew of the reporter's disability but was doing a completely different impersonation, or he didn't know of reporter's disability and was doing a completely different impersonation - either way he wasn't mocking the reporter's disability).
* Trump called for the assassination of Hillary Clinton and Supreme Court justices (transcripts clearly show the context was talking about exercising voting rights).
The list goes on, and on, and the more you look in to it, the more you see example after example where the media took something Trump said or did and applied a narrative to it that matched a narrative various email leaks have shown was the strategy to defeat Trump.
And now half the U.S. is scared because it seems one of the Clinton campaign's main strategies was to make people scared of a president Trump.
The strategy worked well in that many people now seem to be afraid of what's to come, but acceptance-speech Trump did not come off as scary. I think it's worth giving him a chance.
I don't disagree with you, and I especially agree that it's worth giving him a chance. That said, there are examples where what he said was just as bad as it sounds:
* Calling for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."
* "The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families."
* I actually disagree with you on this one. Here's the quote: "If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know." When I heard the audio of that, it sounded very much like he was talking about people taking matters into their own hands. It came across as a joke, but one in very poor taste. Still, I suppose it's conceivable that he's talking about something else, so give that one a pass.
* Then of course, "And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything." Sure, that's not a public statement, nor a statement of policy. It's also not something I can imagine myself or one of my friends saying though. It speaks to his character.
That's just a few. He's not as bad as the media or (obviously) the Clinton camp portrayed. But he still seems plenty bad. That said, maybe he can still govern effectively, and maybe some of the change he brings about will be positive. I hope so.
For nation building, his campaign slogan from day one: Make America Great Again.
For inaccurate portrayals in the media, Wikileaks/Guccifer leaks from the DNC pointing out deliberate strategy to brand Trump as a rascist, sexist, xenophobic, fascist bigot, along with evidence showing strong media collusion to do that, and then going to the source of his most controversial statements and finding out that many were taken out of context to push those exact themes.
But I guess the biggest is simply what I mentioned above. Throughout the campaign Trump has been painted as a bully, as hateful, as a bigot as someone who does things his way and doesn't listen to others. This is also someone with a highly inflated opinion of himself, who paints his name in giant gold letters on his planes and buildings.
He and his platform had just won 'bigly' - the presidency, the senate, the house. If anything the win would embolden someone with with the above characteristics and this speech was the culmination of his entire campaign and what he stood for.
And yet none of those things came through in his speech - no message of hate or divisiveness, no bullying, no messages of vindication or retribution, instead it was the opposite. Reaching out to people who opposed him, offering to work together regardless of race and religion and political affiliation, everyone coming together to build a better America.
That language and tone doesn't square with a narcissistic, bigoted, bully who says what he wants and takes what he pleases.
It just doesn't.
And when I'm confronted with a situation where reality conflicts with my perception of reality, the choice is either to update my perception to match the reality I'm seeing and hearing, or to further twist reality to match that already inaccurate perception.
In any event, Trump made it clear in that speech he wanted to work on unity and building the nation.
Is that something you can support?
If yes, I suspect you are likely to find common ground with many of his supporters. If no, that is on you more than on Trump.
I'll happily admit I was impressed with his conduct with Obama this morning, and the victory speech Tues/Wed. However, you cannot deny that it stands in contrast to the Trump of the campaign trail. It stands in contract to the Trump of later the same day:
> Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair! [1]
Let's not pretend his the victim of a vast media conspiracy to smear him. He has done patently divisive things: Promulgating birtherism, attacking Judge Curiel, attacking Megyn Kelly, the Muslim ban, the mexican-immigrants-are-rapists comment, the calls for mass deportation,...
The only prospect that gives me hope is a temperate, center-right Trump administration emerging from the miasma of this campaign, and working towards unity with his party, the democrats, and the country. I want that, I believe you want that, and I hope most of his supporters want that. For that to happen though, Trump has to be the one to work toward unity, to reach out to the groups he has inarguably alienated.
I saw that tweet, but also saw that many of the protests are being organized by the George Soros backed, MoveOn.org.
That's George Soros the billionaire backer of Hillary Clinton and also someone in opposition to Trump's anti-globalist agenda.
I have no doubt many of the protestors are genuinely protesting against what they believe Trump will mean for the nation. However I do also question the motives of people stirring that up, especially when protests become violent and cause damage to people and property.
> Trump has to be the one to work toward unity, to reach out to the groups he has inarguably alienated.
I agree and I think he made overtures to this in his acceptance speech. He does need people to meet him at the discussion table though, and violent protests, and burning effigies of Trump don't help achieve that aim.
Wait, aren't these the ones dems derided as uneducated non-college degreed voters? So, now that the election is over, we call them middle class? It's little wonder they felt disenfranchised and ridiculed and voted for the victor, including a number of democrats [1]
About 100,000 votes in the right states could have changed the entire outcome, right? But that doesn't really mean just 100,000 people who didn't vote for Hillary determined that Trump would win.
We vote for who we want, if we choose to vote at all. The next 4 years will be determined by a lot more than just this one vote. Political activism is a constant finger on the scales.
Okay, let's stipulate that anyone with an opinion that differs from yours has no moral compass. What next? Do we disenfranchise them? Kill them? Sterilize them and their children and wait it out?
Your attitude is disgusting on a number of levels, but my favorite one is how it leads to nothing useful at all.
Are you trying to equate my distaste for your reasoning with sexual assault? This makes me assume that you're trolling, but I can't imagine to what end.
Looks like you are good man with strong ideals. As they say Sxxx happens and one should be able to deal with it. You should be proud that majority voted for Clinton(25.6%) than Trump(25.5%). Sad part is, almost 46.9% of eligible voters didn't even vote. What Trump said cant be trivialized and you are quite aware that even republicans hated what Trump said. But at the same time, one should recognize that democracy works only when everyone participates. A few swing state voters don't represent all of USA. You can rest assured that this nation has enough good folks and strong institutions that wont let anyone including Presidents go against the constitution.
"Hillary has also lied, I admit it, but it is not even on the same league of Trump."
Come on, even as a liberal - when DWS resigned from the DNC for ethics violations related to the primaries, it was what ... thirty six hours before the Hillary Campaign announced that she was working on the campaign.
That was a "fuck you, we're corrupt and you can't do anything about it".
And in case there remained any doubt, we saw the same thing repeated with Donna Brazile. Fed debate questions to Hillary beforehand, left DNC ... to work for Hillary.
She won the popular vote, and lost the decisive states (MI, PA, WI) by 12, 68, and 27 thousand votes respectively. She did not beat Trump, but she could have, had anything gone even slightly differently.
>>blaming the Democrats for the Trump presidency is an oxymoron.
Not really. The dems sabotaged their only electable candidate. I'm not upset about the Trump presidency only because I had come to terms with it as soon as I realised Hillary was going to screw over Bernie and basically guarantee a Trump presidency. Never before has an 'I told so' felt so unsatisfactory. Besides I'm not even sure a Hillary presidency would have been more palatable given her track record.
So people from Brigade[1] say that among the electorate which used their app, 95% of Republicans pledged to vote Republican, among the Democrats only 55% pledged to vote for Hillary. So... who was it again who helped Trump win?
Yes, that's a great plan for YC. Go up to the next President of the United States and stick their finger in his eye. That'll really show him. That'll Win Friends and Influence People. Can't possibly harm their startups, either, to stick a finger in the President's eye like that. I'm sure they never want to fund a startup ever again that might interact with the Federal government in any way.
And before you say I'm "going Godwin," remember: It was Sam and Paul who've said they think Trump is a threat of similar proportions. If Sam really thinks that, the moral thing to do is cut ties.
And yes, it'll be hard. Would have been easier to do before the election. It will only get harder.
What is going on with this community? I feel like I am taking proverbial crazy pills.
Clinton advocated for a "Manhattan Project" scope effort to backdoor crypto. She wants no-fly zones over Syria, a place we have NO business being in, to directly provoke proxy wars with Russia. She is extremely antagonistic to freedom of association and free enterprise, and she LOVES the panopticon surveillance state we have.
She is NO FRIEND OF EITHER STARTUPS OR HACKERS, and yet, 99% of you are frothing at the mouth over a man who said bad words 18 years ago.
It is at the point that I don't even think I can do business with any of you ever again.
> and yet, 99% of you are frothing at the mouth over a man who said bad words 18 years ago.
There are multiple reports and videos of crowds at his rallies chanting "Kill the bitch, "Hang the bitch", and "Lock her up". Trump knew this and condoned the behaviour. He has actively singled out members of the "corrupt media".
I can respect political differences but this is not normal behaviour for a healthy democracy. It's playing with fire - a fire that may burn out quickly, a fire that may smoulder in the background, or a fire that could burn the whole place down. I'm NOT saying Trump is going to start locking people up (I think he is a populist who said what people wanted to hear) but let's not pretend that the concerns people have are only because of his crude comments about women and minorities.
As I said, it's not about the normal left vs right ideology - Obama and Bush both supported policies that greatly concern me (mass surveillance, drone strikes against US citizens without trial etc). But neither Bush or Obama used this type of rhetoric about their political opponents.
The DNC was caught red handed funding political operatives to organise and fund protests at trump events that started the violent riots that unfolded. There is numerous videos of Trump supporters being assaulted by Democratic thugs. And at this very moment protest organised by MoveOn.org are smashing windows and starting fires in Oakland, LA, NY and other Democrat controlled cities.
I do not see any healthy democratic virtue there at the DNC. It looks a lot like third world political intimidation tactics and violence.
Undercover fomenting discord is entirely unacceptable and should be.
But let's not pretend that was solely the domain of the DNC.
Trump has stood in front of a camera and called for his supporters to beat people up at his rallies. He's said that people should be punched "right in the face". He's offered to pay legal fees for people charged with assault for attacking protestors.
Also "caught" red handed. Except he was openly advocating for it.
I don't disagree re the DNC but do feel there is a difference between scuffles at a protest and openly condoning violence against specific people over multiple months.
I'm not understanding your point. The DNC has not only been condoning violence but actively organising and funding it. People have had to step down from there jobs at the DNC because of these scandals.
I don't recall any time that Trump or anyone at the RNC 'openly condoning violence against specific people'. If there is some proof of this I would like to see it.
I find it ... 'odd' ... that you can be so well-informed about DNC issues but have "no recollection" (I love that phrase, works so well when people are being hauled in front of Congress) of any specific issue of violence from Trump or the RNC.
In fact, here you go, someone's collated them all, with evidence:
Thanks for posting those links. The thing to think about is that the 'protesters' that showed up at the rallies were precisely the people the DNC sent there to try there hardest to stir up violence.
The DNC sent those protesters to provoke violent confrontation that the Clinton media operatives at the networks could use to craft the narrative that trump was a big baddie.
So while its not the sort of behaviour anyone want to see in an election. The fact remains that the entire scenario was being crafted by the DNC to damage there opponent which is far worse then what happened on the ground.
The use of fake protesters sent to stir up violence at political events is an attack on democracy itself. And an attempt to shut down peoples write to participate in a democratic society. In that light the behaviour of Trump is quite understandable.
Would you let a few paid protesters shut down your political rally?
> There are multiple reports and videos of crowds at his rallies chanting "Kill the bitch, "Hang the bitch", and "Lock her up". Trump knew this and condoned the behaviour. He has actively singled out members of the "corrupt media".
Of all the things Trump has ever said or done in his life these 2 things aren't even close to the worst and were pretty poor choices for this argument.
Both of these examples are just a reflection of many people's anger with the status quo, globalism, elitism, whatever you want to call it. People are pissed at government. This is happening around the world.
They were widely reported in the media. He could have taken the approach that McCain took in regards to Obama being called a muslim but instead he continued the rhetoric of "locking up crooked Hillary" and insinuated that the second amendment could be a solution. He was/is deliberately exploiting the anger of some people. History tells us that this is playing with fire.
In my personal morality: Torture is an absolute evil. Military engagements to kill armed combatants that kill innocents is a relative evil. Surveillance is a relative evil.
Trump is the Torture Candidate. He's on record, he loves torture. He said it on the campaign trail. He could have been Orange Bernie and I would have refused to vote for him.
The subthread you are replying to didn't mention Clinton. Didn't talk about Clinton. Didn't even say the word "Clinton" once. Yet your reply is entirely about Clinton. Why?
You'll find that a lot of people in this community actively dislike Clinton. But after the election, she is now essentially irrelevant. So talking about her doesn't advance anything - talking about the upcoming president, however...
Because two days ago Clinton was the alternative. And all the anger in the community in the last 48 hours (and prior, in the case of Thiel and YC ) has been directed at those who selected against her. This will be relevant long after the election even if the topic is Trump, for obvious reasons.
Yup...all points that warrant much pause and consideration, to understate the hell out of it. Yet these "details" are glossed over in a discussion by "thinking" people. It's as if people put on their thinking caps to build some software, but chuck it in a wastebin and rely 100% on hunches and assumptions as they navigate the rest of their world...their beliefs, community, state of their country...no critical thinking needed or desired. Just react. Take it all at face value. He's the bad one. She's the good one. So simple.
Yes, you went Godwin. Trump isn't Hitler. That's election propaganda, not truth. Election's over. Time to put the election propaganda away.
Now, you might still not like him. Heck, let me take a bold step and say you won't like him. He will do things you won't like. Welcome to the real world. My government's been doing things I don't like my entire life. (Along with all the things I do like.) But I rate the odds that he's going to ethnically cleanse the US at "as close to 0 as I can mathematically get".
In the event that he really does turn into Hitler, I promise to stand up to stop him along with all the other people who will. I'm not too worried about having to follow through on that, though.
(If you want to talk about which candidates tend to murder their way out of problems... well... I'll freely admit to not having proof but Trump wasn't the one I was worried about that.)
That's a vacuous argument. No one's Hitler except Hitler. No one called him Hitler except in your strawman. We can only judge the President-elect on what his stated plans are.
And one of his plans is literally to make Muslims register the same way Jews were made to register before the Holocaust. IBM faced an analogous choice: cut ties for moral reasons or preserve the relationship for expediency's sake.
Take it from someone who saw what Brexit did to the UK: Your country, by electing someone with an unpleasant set of views on race/religion, has implicitly given free reign to people with even more unpleasant views on those to do whatever they want and not fear repercussions because... after all, they've been told they're in the majority now.
I suspect it's easier to promise to stand up to the "as close to 0 as you can mathematically get" than to address problems that are happening today.
"has implicitly given free reign to people with even more unpleasant views on those to do whatever they want and not fear repercussions because..."
And I believe that our country was already giving free reign to those with "unpleasant views". For instance, I don't think it's a coincidence that race relations have generally considered to be getting worse over the past several years: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/24/us/poll-shows-most-america... I'm a pragmatist. If people are all saying or doing the right things in the leadership but the race relations are getting worse, then clearly they are not saying or doing the right things.
So, "no"? And no because it's a problem that already existed and keeps getting worse?
Tell me: Where's the Godwin line, exactly? You railed against ubernostrum just because he compared a current situation to one in the 1930s and what you get out of this is that America's safe: should Trump turn into Hitler, America is safe because you, and surely lots of others, will stand up to the government!
Goody. Well, I feel better now, whew!
You're a pragmatist, right? So tell me: Where is that point where you, and many others, stand up to the growing problem? Is it when the people rise up and protest? (They already have.) Is it when people start dying? (Many are). Or do you wait until a wall is being built, religions are being rejected at the border and the targeted groups are being threatened on the street?
Where is that fucking line? Do thousands have to die? Does it have to be tens, hundreds of thousands? Is it when it hits 7 digits?
You won't stand up to all this nonsense? Fine. I fully realize you don't have the logistics for it. Nobody does.
No worries, you won't have to -- an ethnic cleansing is, as you said, mathematically close to 0. And really, there'll be nobody left by the time it gets to that point, because you're not standing up now.
The world is overpopulated right now and would be better if 90% of living people didn't exist. If I had to pick America with the Republicans gone or Democrats gone I'm leaning towards Democrats.
It seems that you want people with opinions you find odious to be unhappy all the time and accept that as their lot in life. If I've understood that correctly, by what mechanism do you propose this work?
What I did was describe the current situation in the US. I'm making no particular remark, in the post you're replying to, on what I want out of "people with opinions I find odious".
If someone is willing to say that they would stand up to an ethnic cleansing, I think it's reasonable to ask them at what point they'll stand up to it.
I do find cultural bigotry to be odious though and to answer your question, I will not protect the rights of people to threaten and kill others. I will not defend a culture that promotes the exclusion of classes of people by skin color, religion, accent, gender or even political leanings.
I don't know why you're asking me what mechanism would make this work. People's unhappiness has very little impact on whether policies work. Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this discussion, as the things I refuse to defend would not be happening in the first place.
> Your country, by electing someone with an unpleasant set of views on race/religion, has implicitly given free reign to people with even more unpleasant views on those to do whatever they want and not fear repercussions because... after all, they've been told they're in the majority now.
If you want these people to not feel free to express their opinions then you want some other thing. Feel free to explain what, if I misconstrued.
I think you might be reading "to do whatever they want" far too generously, unless you consider death threats (and worse) to be free expression of opinions that should be protected.
Threats are illegal, and that hasn't changed. If that is truly all you are talking about, then thank you for clarifying because that was not at all evident.
I guess in trying to keep a friendly tone to my post I overneutered it. But yes, I was referencing the stuff that was happening in the news article I linked. Similar things happened right after the Brexit vote: All of a sudden, people coming out of the woodwork thinking it's now okay to tell others to "go back to their country" (even natives), to threaten them, beat them up, etc.
The more divisive the vote is, the more violent the winner gets. Bullying is easier when you have the numbers.
America just elected someone who actively encouraged beating people up at rallies. The fallout is going to suck.
I'm not going to say it's good that people have xenophobic interactions but not liking immigrants is and has been legal for some time
I personally prefer to let the people with the ugly opinions have their say so I know who they are and I can engage them. The plan to keep them in hiding can only work until they feel too much pressure and explode, which is just what happened
I guess what I'm saying is what you seem to be advocating is what just failed. I don't think going back to it will work either.
> I'm not going to say it's good that people have xenophobic interactions but not liking immigrants is and has been legal for some time
Right, I'm definitely not attacking that. I'm also not really advocating for anything -- thankfully I haven't been put in charge of the mess that the US is, so I don't have to find a solution for it all by myself. I was just saying I won't defend such things.
If I did, though, it'd probably involve education and systemic changes. Like you said, "hiding" the problem didn't, doesn't and never will work. I don't believe that Hillary would have made any changes to the system, so if anything 2020 could have been a worse election (whereas now, I'm reasonably certain that unless Trump does exceptionally well this cycle [or exceptionally badly], Warren will be president the next).
These are all theoretical fixes to a system that's broken today, though. People are being bullied in the streets, at their work etc. When do people stand up to that?
Yesterday somebody was lamenting that people shouldn't say "democracy is gone" when it's working exactly as intended. This here isn't what's intended. Two sides fighting to the point that further escalation would result in civil war? The extreme demonization of democrats, republicans, mexicans, muslims, blacks, old people, christians, atheists and whatever demographic favours one side over the other? Seeing the immediate aftermath of the election, I fear that America really is falling apart.
I mean, here in Europe, people are saying left and right that the EU is falling apart because of Brexit and a general sentiment against globalization. The US has it worse now. I'm starting to wonder if there'll still be 50 states in a few years.
I expect this all ends in revolution of some sort. Our technological advances have far outpaced our government structures, so it's feeling like time to redo things.
Oh yes, because surely it's only those evil Trump supporters who are the bad guys! As you can see here a wild pack of trump supports are attacking a poor old hillary supporter:
Oh wait no, sorry, that's a group of leftists literally beating up an old man 10v1 because he's white and might have voted for Trump. Sorry, you were saying something about people not fearing repercussions?
I don't even see what your post is trying to say. The only charitable explanation I can come up with is you're trying to reinforce my point that those in the majority feel like they can be assholes without repercussions.
Take a long, hard look at both my post and yours and ask yourself what point you're attempting to make (and if you somehow don't come up empty, please share it with the rest of the class - I'd love to know at least).
Your post suggests that now that Trump supporters are the majority, it's open season on minorities. Like somehow the regular joes who voted for Trump will turn into some kind of criminals that go around beating up minorities. I find that ridiculous. It's not just the majority, it's the minority as well (see the video). Criminals gonna criminal, regardless if they are the majority or minority.
It's also unfair to say that the act of electing Trump is implicitly condoning this kind of behavior, which is absurd. ~60 million people voted for Trump. A tiny minority will use it as an excuse to commit violence and crime. Just like a tiny minority of Hillary supporters will use the election of Trump to commit violence and crime (See video).
Now, you use Brexit as an example where ordinary people who didn't agree with the direction the country was going and wanted a change, somehow turned to violence. I'd need to see some evidence of this because here's an article (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3805008/The-great-Br...) that provides direct evidence from your police force that hate crimes did not significantly increase. Here's a sample from the article:
"However, its footnote added that 85 people had logged hate crime ‘incidents’ on True Vision, a website that records unverified allegations of such behaviour, during the four days in question, up from 54 during the corresponding period a month earlier.
What exactly did this mean? The police press release made things clear. ‘This should not be read as a national increase in hate crime of 57 per cent but an increase in reporting through one mechanism’ over a single 96-hour period."
And the next section is a series of images that were used as propaganda citing a 57% increase in hate crimes since brexit used by anti-brexit campaigners. A direct contradiction to your police force's analysis of the statistics.
The idea that somehow ordinary people turn into racist criminals is just wrong. So there, I shared with the class. I hope your condescending response made you feel smug and happy inside. Made me feel good to drop police stats to prove my case. Why don't you go ahead and share your stats with the class that suggest an uptick in violence due to "implicit" permission.
> Criminals gonna criminal, regardless if they are the majority or minority.
Bullying is exponential. The acts of hatred I linked have been happening for a long time, but elections such as Brexit and Trump are validation for such behaviour. They tell the population: "You have more support than you thought you did".
The filter bubbles, the disconnect that everybody talks about? That amplifies that behaviour as well. It makes people feel like the violence is justified. And yes this happens on both sides, but this isn't a fucking contest.
I'll also note that you're linking the Daily Mail, which is the lowest quality rag in the UK and is extremely biased. I don't want to argue numbers because that's not what this is about -- It's a controversial subject in the UK and I'm well aware both "sides" exaggerate everything. What I can tell you is that there was a surge of violence following the vote because of the validating effect it has.
> The idea that somehow ordinary people turn into racist criminals is just wrong
Dude, really, this isn't what I claimed anywhere. You wrote a whole fucking post arguing numbers which I didn't bring up, fighting a point which I didn't make. Only reason I'm replying is because you put effort into it, but really, step out of your damn bubble for a bit and stop seeing the world in such black and white terms.
I told you to take a look at my post and yours - you failed that basic task. All you managed to do is make assumptions, craft an entire narrative around my post and then proceed to argue that narrative you yourself built.
Ordinary people may not turn into racist criminals, but it sure highlights how people like you can turn into insufferable trolls with very little effort.
"Take it from someone who saw what Brexit did to the UK: Your country, by electing someone with an unpleasant set of views on race/religion, has implicitly given free reign to people with even more unpleasant views on those to do whatever they want and not fear repercussions because... after all, they've been told they're in the majority now."
You argued that there would be an increase in "do whatever they want", which I take to mean crimes (assault, robbery, hate crimes, etc) by people who feel empowered by a majority.
You cited anecdotal evidence as an example (take it from me, I experienced brexit...) to back up your claim there would be an increase in crime. I cited a source ("rag" or not, they cited direct quotes from the police and the police's own analysis of the statistics that there wasn't an exponential increase) to prove the idea that there is some kind of magical "exponential" increase in crime to be false.
My point is that electing Trump is not going to cause this increase because the vast majority of ordinary citizens will not turn into criminals exponentially.
You're right. Trump doesn't believe Hitler did nothing wrong. He's just the overwhelmingly preferred candidate of people who believe Hitler did nothing wrong. It's an important difference! Those people obviously voted for him while believing he would never actually act on the things they care about!
Going Godwin again doesn't make the argument any better.
This is what all those news articles lately have been about. You're too insulated from the rest of the country if you seriously think ~50% of the nation just voted for Hitler. That card's played out... every Republican's been [expletive] Hitler if you listen to the Democrats. That's election propaganda. Time to put that away. I mean, ideally we wouldn't all swallow it in the first place, but time to put it away.
So you're telling me it was a ridiculous liberal myth that David Duke supported Trump? That since the election results came in large numbers of people have reported increased harassment and threats of violence based on their apparent race, religion or national origin? That the Trump campaign refused to disavow the xenophobic tendencies of some vocal supporters?
I'd love to find out that it was all 100% manufactured and none of it ever happened or was true. But, y'know, it all did happen and was true. And it elected a candidate who began his campaign on explicitly racist (build a wall and deport all the "Mexican rapists") and xenophobic (ban all the Muslims) lines.
How is it "nibbling around the edges"? We're talking about a man for whom the use of immigration policy to expel or deny entry to people he deemed undesirable was literally the founding of his campaign. It was the issue with which he chose to introduce himself to the electorate. Is it somehow unfair to conclude he felt it was an important thing, and unfair to judge him based on it?
I'm not taking issue with the substance of your argument. The form bothers me. You've worked your way through every possible guilt-by-association tactic there is. It's bush league argumentation.
So it's guilt by association to associate Donald Trump with positions and policies Donald Trump has espoused? This is the "stop making him look bad by reporting exactly what he said" debacle from the campaign all over again.
Yes, if you imply that Donald trump is guilty of actions those associated with him have taken, you are using guilt by association. It's definitional!
I understand that you feel strongly about this, but it's not illegal to hate someone. If there are people being threatened or harmed, we do have police and the general rule of law to handle those things. It's not like trump runs the government now!
Despite emotional currents we are mostly peaceful domestically. Our institutions are still democratic in nature. Trump has to share power with the other pillars of government.
We are very, very far from anything resembling naziism. No amount of hatred expressed in speech is equivalent. Action is required.
I'm not doing any gymnastics. I suspect you believe me to be a trump supporter, but I'm more like a grief counselor helping people like you work through the stages by keeping you grounded in reality.
So, repeating my question: is it "guilt by association" to say that when someone openly and loudly makes the favored policies of racist xenophobes into a centerpiece of his campaign, he's going to end up getting the support and votes of racist xenophobes? Is it unfair to question why he chose to openly and loudly make those policies a centerpiece of his campaign? Is it unfair to ask whether he was courting the votes of the racist xenophobes?
If someone loudly campaigned on a promise of, say, amnesty for immigrants who have no criminal record or who were brought here as children, would you call it unfair to conclude that the person was either courting the vote of immigrants and their sympathizers, or was an immigrant or sympathizer? Would you call that "bush league" and "guilt by association"?
Or does this standard magically only apply when it's Donald Trump?
I'm not sure I understand you clearly. Are you saying that Donald Trump is guilty because of who supported him, and that's not invoking guilt by association?
I'm saying that given the direct, plain and obvious connection between the policies he advocated for, and the groups who supported him, it is reasonable to ask whether it was his intent to court the support of those groups.
I notice you also haven't answered my question: does your sudden intense desire to pick apart any argument I make apply to all arguments, or only -- by complete coincidence -- to arguments made with respect to Donald Trump?
hitler was seen to be pretty crazy to most "moderate" germans too and he wasn't voted in as the führer with absolute power. he slowly worked his way up in popularity until he became chancellor. then he worked to slowly build up members of the NSDAP into positions of power until no one could oppose him. then he began suppressing the opposition.
the lesson about hitler in germany is not, "don't vote in an extreme dictator" the lesson about hitler is that a person can assume power legally and still end up with total control without the will of the people.
you "promise" to stand up to trump if he becomes this. but by the time you realize what's going on. it'll be too late.
now i'm not saying trump is going to become hitler. the reason everyone is scared now is because he is following similar blueprints to hitler or other fascists. most of the time these type of leaders just become any other "normal" leader and do their term and let power go democratically and i honestly hope that happens because that's the best case.
but if he goes through with everything he promises. it'll be very scary. trumps call to south korea president assuring her that us forces would remain was very assuring for the stability of asia, so i have some hope.
this is almost a version of the boy who cried wolf. too many people have cried hitler and now no one believes it or just dismisses it outright.
Understand that with Trump, he is willing to say somewhat crazy shit in order to negotiate from a position of strength, versus conceding the fact ahead of time and hoping another country will give us the same slack.
I think this will become more clear once the man has a chance to lead for a few months. That no, he's not going to try to dispatch paddywagons to round up all the illegals, no he's not going to try to require all Muslim citizens to enter some sort of registry... but he is going to tell all the people who spent the 10 years becoming legal citizens that there time was well-spent, and send a message to the people like Syed Farook that they will have a much harder time walking through CBP.
When Trump suspends the constitution and starts a continental war with Mexico and Canada. And sends Six million Jews including his own daughter to be exterminated in gas chambers then we can compare him to Hitler.
Until such events unfold (I'm not holding my breath) entertaining people who make these ridiculous arguments is like a slow, self inflicted lobotomy.
We can go by his stated intentions to help determine where in the realm of possibility his future actions might play out.
Mass deportations and a retreat on civil rights and equality are within that realm.
> (Also, if the Holocaust had only consisted of mass deportations it wouldn't be nearly as bad or remembered. Have some perspective.)
We already tried this and have seen the results. We rounded up and deported more than a million Mexicans twice in our history. It is remembered, California apologized for their hand in it a couple of years ago.
Millions of families could be uprooted, torn apart and be left stranded without ID, possessions or money[1] and left to die[2]. Mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors, co-workers and classmates could disappear.
My perspective is that 'exactly as bad as the Holocaust' isn't the bar to pass to be a potential tragedy.
I didn't make a comparison to the Holocaust, but since we're there: deportation and mass ordered removal is part of what made the Holocaust a tragedy. It took years of deportations (of the traditional sense), forced relocations and imprisonment before people were shipped to the ovens in droves.
Its precisely because of SJW outrage cultures ridiculous juvenile comparisons to Hitler of anyone who disagrees with the narrative that these claims have zero shock value and no one takes them seriously anymore.
The same can be said of racism, sexism, misogyny etc.
You have done more to de-stigmatize these words then the people who espouse the ideology have ever been able to do. It has made the accusation in itself a clownish eye rolling gesture to the general public. Rather then something to take seriously.
No one with any credibility is going to compare the President elect of the United States to Hitler. Its a pantomime act that the disgraced 'Media' and Twitter nobodies do to entertain one another.
Apparently, the "certainly implement" part was a misattribution. But if you follow the analysis in the article you posted, it's quite clear that Trump basically does favor the idea of such a registry -- and that yes, it would be mandatory for all "legal" entries into the country:
Friday, Nov. 20
The next day, an MSNBC reporter asked Trump, "Should there be a database or system that tracks Muslims in this country?"
"There should be a lot of systems," Trump responded. "Beyond databases. I mean, we should have a lot of systems."
Trump then digressed to talk about a wall along the southern border, before the reporter interjected, "But that’s something your White House would like to implement."
"I would certainly implement that. Absolutely," Trump said.
Here, we’re not clear if Trump is talking about implementing a wall or implementing a database.
But a few seconds later, when asked how he would register people into a database, Trump said, "It would just be good management."
Finally, the reporter asked if Muslims would legally have to be part of the database.
"They have to be — they have to be," Trump said. "Let me just tell you: The key is people can come to the country, but they have to come legally."
I'm not sure what you specifically mean by "such a registry", but if you read further, he clarifies his comments to MSNBC by saying he means a registry for Syrian refugees.
After Trump’s tweet, Fox News asked him about his position on a Muslim registry.
"Let's hear it directly from you," said host Kimberly Guilfoyle. "Would President Donald Trump support a full Muslim database?"
"Basically the suggestion was made and (it’s) certainly something we should start thinking about," Trump said, repeating that the reporter presented the idea. "But what I want is a watch list. I want surveillance programs. Obviously, there are a lot of problems. … But, certainly, I would want to have a database for the refugees, for the Syrian refugees that are coming in because nobody knows where they're coming from."
Guilfoyle followed up: "So to be clear, you are not saying anything with respect to a religious database. You are talking about the Syrian refugees in light of the national security development affecting this country as we speak here tonight."
Trump said he didn’t hear the MSNBC reporter’s question clearly, "but even if I did, I mean, I want databases for the Syrian refugees that Obama is going to let in if they come in."
Taken together, the best spin you can put on these statements is that he's obviously too muddle-headed to be shouldered with the responsibility of formulating and articulating national policy on sensitive issues like these.
All legal aliens in this country are already in a database. They have green cards or are here on some sort of visa, and it's all tracked in databases. All citizens are as well, unless they are young enough or isolated enough to never have had a job or a credit card or filed a tax return or had any other interaction with the governemnt.
Not entirely. Trump was extremely unclear and dodgy when asked more about his comments in the days after that interview. People asked him very directly on several occasions if he would, in fact, implement a Muslim database. He never denied that he would. In fact, he confirmed that he wants a database for Syrian refugees.
"Never denied he would" is not exactly the same as "Would for sure do it".
> he confirmed that he wants a database for Syrian refugees.
Doesn't the government already have database of all immigrants? I even have a nice card with a number, I'm pretty sure this number refers to a record in the database. Before I had that, I also had to fill in and send out certain forms, which I am pretty sure also went to some government database.
So how exactly Syrian refugees are different and what exactly makes the thing that US - and pretty much every other, as far as I know - government routinely does so beyond the pale?
Palantir, one of Thiel's companies, will now be able to embed itself even deeper in the surveillance state. It's what Trump needs to "get even" with people who make fun of him or oppose him.
Excellent. I look forward to seeing Peter's expertise help Trump continue the wonderful progress we have made in improving tech in government under the Obama administration.
It's obviously off topic; the topic is the news described in the title.
Veering into most-controversial-generic-thing-associated-with-controversial-thing-X is hands down the worst direction politicized threads can take on HN, and they're borderline to begin with. Whimsical or unpredictable tangents are ok, but generic ideological tangents are always off-topic. They're black holes: they suck everything in, including all the oxygen of thoughtful discussion.
Because these things are so generic you can always make a case for their relevance to a specific story, but the proof is in the pudding: what happens when discussions veer off this way? The pudding sucks. This one in particular is embarrassingly terrible. This pudding needs to stop forthwith.
You guys are going to need to find a way to back off on the US politics. I have no idea how... it's all I can think about myself right now, but it's a poisonous topic.
Yep. It's way more important than, say, how to write and maintain a large code base in Elixir. Politics can easily crowd out that kind of thing from the front page. I don't know what to say. I can't think about much else, but sooner or later, maybe things will return to some semblance of normalcy, and I do like the tech/startup discussions here.
No he didn't. He suggested, correctly, that women getting the vote was bad for libertarians, because women vote against it. If you read the quote in context, that is very clearly what he's saying.
> how could it be anything other than a "bad thing" in this context?
"X lead to Y which is bad" is not the same as "X is bad". For example, relative abundance of high-calorie food led to obesity epidemics in the US. Is pointing out this fact means one wants Americans to starve to death? Or just pointing out some things have consequences, some of which are not good, even if things themselves are good? There's no law of nature that says consequences of something we consider good all must be good, and it's often not so.
> Why would you want him in government?
Because he knows how dangerous is raw democracy to freedom, just as folks who made the Constitution knew and thus made specific restrictions on the democratic powers of the Congress? You know, all that "Congress shall make no law"?
"It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better."
It is exactly what that sentence is saying. No amount of post-wiggle words does anything to change that.
I think you might simply not be aware what the point of contention is here. Here is what you can say: "people without libertarian principles make capitalist democracy impossible".
Yet he connected that with gender somehow.
(It's not even a true statement if you think theres some isomorphism between Trump and Thiel. White women polled 53% for him.)
That statement does not at all counter reading that Thiel believes granting women suffrage was a bad thing, and that this, combined with the expansion of social welfare programs, is incompatible with his ideals. It does not actually clarify that he thinks granting women voting rights was good, or something other than bad. All he says is it would be absurd to take it away [now], and it wouldn't solve the problems he cares about.
His original statement was never that woman's suffrage was bad, it was only an (accurate) observation that women do not lean towards libertarianism. People saying that he says 'giving woman the vote was a bad idea' are literally inserting words of their own to imply that reading.
If the statement he made to explicitly counter that reading and to say that such a reading was absurd does not counter that reading, then I'm not sure what does.
I'm not libertarian, and I don't agree with Peter Thiels beliefs, but if you look at the whole point of his manifesto it's that governments interfere, and giving people the power to elect different ones won't make a difference, and therefore people need to build places that are free of government influence (Internet, Outer Space, and on/under the seas).
I suspect that will work out for him as well as Bitcoin has worked out without a central authority, and which is discovering and repeating all the mistakes of the past, and that has ended up with a pseudo central authority anyway.
> His original statement was never that woman's suffrage was bad, it was only an (accurate) observation that women do not lean towards libertarianism. People saying that he says 'giving woman the vote was a bad idea' are literally inserting words of their own to imply that reading.
Either you're being far too generous (from my vantage point), or we're talking past each other regarding what we are determining the contextual meaning of "bad" to be here. And I promise I'm not trying to create a silly semantic argument here.
The paragraph in question follows immediately on the heels of lamenting "that the broader education of the body politic has become a fool's errand." He states that "the trend has been going the wrong way for a long time" (meaning bad, in comparison to what he thinks is good, to put it in simplest terms). He praises the roaring 20s as "so strong that historians have forgotten the depression that started it" (a claim I think is a bit overblown; people have forgotten, but historians haven't overlooked this). His claim builds its force here:
> The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics.
This statement would rightly catch the attention of even the most under-informed student of history. What could possibly have made the 20s the last optimism-worthy decade in American history, when there seem to many people to have been some of the greatest advancements in social and civil progress after that decade?
Please grant me a moment of latitude here.
> Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women ... have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron.
For Thiel, 'rendering the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron' is bad. This is the centerpiece of his notion of what's good. And why have we lost that which was good to that which is bad? Because there are too many welfare recipients and women gained the vote. These are the two causes he identifies as doing the rendering of that which was good into that which is bad.
Based on your comments, you seem to place most of the emphasis for your understanding on the parenthetical aside that is included between the dashes:
> --two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians--.
This is, without a doubt, a very astute observation on Thiel's part. However, at least from the standpoint of reading his statement, in the context in which it was delivered, this parenthetical aside does not define the relationship of the stated causes to the unwanted effects. It only provides an additional thought on those two causes and the difficulty libertarians encounter in their attempts to win them over to the side of what they believe to be good. This is simply Writing 101 here. Parenthetical statements provide additional information and explanatory thoughts within the context of their surroundings. Or, Thiel could have intended his dashes to be understood as comma replacements, in which case he's merely offering an additional identifying bit of information to modify his two causes of rendering what was good into what is bad. Nonetheless, the dashed-off clause is an accurate observation that is related, but does not read as the point of the sentence. Perhaps this charitable reading you are maintaining would make more sense if Thiel is just a poor writer. Unfortunately, the whole of his essay is overwhelmingly well-written and appears quite intentional in its thrust.
Now, back to the bit where we are perhaps defining just what is bad differently. In light of his principles and what he thinks was good in the 1920s, and what would be good now into the future, he states both welfare recipients and extending the franchise to women are bad things that exist and/or happened. He doesn't equivocate in his original essay, though he does in his rejoinder. He affirms that he does not believe any class of people should be disenfranchised. Okay, great. All good there. He states that it would be absurd to suggest such a thing. Alright. Feeling good here still, right? But the equivocation comes in stating that this wouldn't solve the political problems that he believes vex us. You see, that doesn't actually clarify his original statement. He doesn't make a clear statement that extending the franchise to women was a good thing. This would, in my reading, clear the air. Instead, he appears to be holding up two conflicting ideas:
- Welfare beneficiaries and women's suffrage cost us what was good in American life, politics, and optimism for the future, instead giving us what is bad
- No class of people should be disenfranchised, it's absurd to think so, and besides, this wouldn't solve our problems anyway
> If the statement he made to explicitly counter that reading and to say that such a reading was absurd does not counter that reading, then I'm not sure what does.
What he says is absurd is suggesting that women's votes will be taken away or that doing so would solve our problems. So many years later, I'm left assuming that is what everyone was complaining about. But it's not what I'm talking about. So, great ... it's absurd to think he wants to disenfranchise women; it's absurd to think he believes this would solve problems even if we did disenfranchise women. But he doesn't plainly say that it's absurd to think that he suggested extending the franchise to women was a bad thing in the first place. He doesn't clarify that point. Instead, sadly too much like a politician choosing ambiguity to appear to be saying what s/he thinks people want to hear, he focuses on clarifying that he doesn't want anyone to be disenfranchised. At least not now, because voting and politics don't have a chance at solving our problems.
> I'm not libertarian, and I don't agree with Peter Thiels beliefs, but if you look at the whole point of his manifesto it's that governments interfere, and giving people the power to elect different ones won't make a difference, and therefore people need to build places that are free of government influence (Internet, Outer Space, and on/under the seas).
And just a few years later, he donates a ton of money and gets on stage at a national convention to campaign for a politician and tell people they should get out and vote to make a difference.
Everyone wants to government to stop meddling, except when they want the government to meddle on behalf of their pet causes.
I certainly can do the substitution. But there are multiple options for the substitution:
* Substitute from my own hyper-progressive stance. (Great for feeling good about myself and hating on him.)
* Substitute from his stance. (Great for understanding my opponent.)
* Substitute only a logical equivalence.
I recommend the second, but as a neutral starting point to break out of the mindset of the first, I'd recommend trying the third. As in, put yourself in your formal symbolic logic class, replace "women voting" and "good governance and policy" with X and Y and evaluate it.
Your statement, "X doesn't necessarily result in Y" (which admittedly is not his statement), logically means exactly "It's possible for X to happen and Y to not happen."
So, Thiel believes, to use the logical evaluation of your rephrasing, that it's possible for women to vote and for there still to be bad policy.
Women DID vote, so the only the determining the truth of the logical evaluation of your rephrasing is whether we have (or will have post January 20) bad policy. Right now, Trump's promising some bad policy.
"It's bad that over 60 million people died during WWII."
=>
"It's bad that the the Allies fought Hitler."
---
He said that he doubts democracy and freedom are incompatible.
Did he say either one was bad?
Lots of ideals are incompatible.
100% democracy and 100% freedom are are not fully compatible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_rule For example, the minority must be protected from the majority.
Bad for your cause and bad for society aren't the same thing. The thoughts on freedom and democracy are at least as old as Alexis de Tocqueville. Maybe try actually reading some political theory.
In context his suggestion is that women being allowed to vote is incompatible with enacting his ideal philosophy of government. Which in turn implies that the only way to implement his ideal philosophy of government would be to deny women the right to vote.
He didn't suggest they were incompatible, he suggested that they haven't gone hand in hand, which they haven't. You could just as easily imply that he thinks libertarianism has marketed itself poorly to women.
You've stated the contrapositive, which is fine, except that he didn't imply that denying women the right to vote would be a positive strategy regardless of the effects it had on his ideology of choice.
If he could get his Libertopia at the cost of women's suffrage, do you think he'd balk at that? Or do you believe he's not a means-justify-the-ends type?
You could just as easily infer from his statement that he thinks libertarians need to market themselves better to women than that he thinks they shouldn't be allowed to vote.
His ideal form of government is minimal enough that voting is superfluous. That you infer nefarious motive speaks not at all to what was actually implied.
Well, it was started via the initiation of force. Which is one of only two sins in libertarianism, so if someone is a consistent libertarian they can't advocate for that as the way to get going.
The revolution came about first, but the United States government was enacted by a vote of the second continental congress, formed of delegates from the thirteen colonies.
What I'm getting at is that the rulers of the new government voted to start it. That's pretty much what I'd expect from any government.
You left out "capitalist democracy", his point is that capitalism and democracy are mutually exclusive concepts when women are allowed to vote since they tend to vote for socialism.
I don't think you should claim he said that without inserting the actual quote in the interest of accuracy:
> Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.
In the context, I believe he's claiming that women voting resulted in a distancing from libertarian values, which he disagrees with ideologically. There's a significant difference between that and claiming that "giving women the vote was a bad thing."
Are you able to make an argument disagreeing with those reasons or would you prefer to just cherry pick quotes to present a narrative that confirms your world view?
That statement does not counter a reading that Thiel believes granting women suffrage was a bad thing, and that this, combined with the expansion of social welfare programs, is incompatible with his ideals. All he says is it would be absurd to take it away now, and it wouldn't solve the problems he cares about.
"The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."
So if you break down his line of reasoning:
- 1920s were good because one could be optimistic about politics
- This changed when welfare programs were expanded and women were granted the right to vote
- Therefore, granting women the right to vote was a bad thing
I mean I dunno, regardless of how I read it, I can't extract any positive meaning from anything he said. He even said that he no longer believes freedom and democracy are compatible. So yeah...
"Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."
So not that giving the women the vote was a bad thing, just an observation on how women vote.
In follow up comments he said:
"It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better."
In other words, voting isn't enough to bring about needed change (look at the U.S. over the last 2 decades for evidence of this)
Seems like he said that giving women the vote moved politics further to the left and thus was bad for capitalism, not that it was a bad thing in general.
As much as Tuesday night felt like the end of days, this seems a bit extreme. I won't say utterly impossible, as I already can't believe what's happened, but still very, very unlikely.
I hope this will lead to the so called "revolution" by Thiel in the beginning. He had vision in the past and hopefully that will not become extreme and lead to something bad. I don't think there is no one can control Trump..
Thiel is smart enough to support Trump from the beginning despite all the disagreement from his circles. Although I think he is somewhat an extremist but with a vision. I think there will be change, and in good way.
I am a Canadian, so I neither have a say, or really can comment on American politics.
This Saturday, my two daughters (ages 11 and 8) are driving a 1,700km journey to North Dakota to show our support for the #NoDAPL movement. I am doing it because my eldest is really into Aboriginal rights right now. These people are just trying to preserve their land.
Perhaps California's exit from the union will hep YC re-establish its moral integrty. Sam Altman, you wanted to radically change the word (in a positive way)? Well now is your chance!
It might be the morally correct choice (I reserve judgment on that) for California to secede from the US, but it's certainly not a good idea pragmatically.
Trump doesn't really have any consistent ideology about most things, but the one thing he never wavers on is his commitment to protectionist trade policy.
If California seceded from the US to spite Trump, Trump will do everything in his power to block commerce between California and the United States. California's economy will tank, and all the tech companies there will be practically worthless.
California has access to all the West Coast trade-ports between the US and China. With these ports in place, we don't need to rust-belt states to ship-in goods. An our economy is centered information technology and entertainment, so we don't really need to worry about reduction of economically viable exported goods (all farmed and manufactured products will be consumed internally, thus bolstering that aspect of the California economy).
Commerce isn't as simple as importing and exporting physical goods. Broad sanctions could, for example, prevent American companies from spending money on ads with Google, or American engineers from moving to California to work for them.
Also it wouldn't be morally correct, because California isn't a singular Democrat state. The coastal districts are Democrat, everything else votes Republican. Cecession would create exactly the same problem in California as we have right now: a massive rift between two parties.
No. Its a legitimate idea currently making the headway in our community. And if you think its ridiculous, let me ask you...Is the notion of a seperatist, intelligently run Californian sovereign state any less ridiculous than the notion of a Trump Presidency two years ago? We've always been a community of disruptors...well, now's our opportunity to really distrupt.https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/10/calexit-is-silicon-valleys...
Maybe. I would strongly advise resolving those issues before seceding. I would also advise considering what would happen if the Central Valley (and other rural regions of the state) didn't want to join the new entity.
"I don't see a moral obligation for anyone to serve in a Trump administration. But people who opposed Donald Trump, on both the left and right, should commit right now to one thing: We will not tar good people for joining the Trump administration. Their motives will not be questioned, and if things do turn out as some of his critics fear, the people in his foreign and domestic policy apparatus will not suffer guilt by association. It is just too important that Trump have good advisers.
Trump will be the least policy-savvy president in history. He has built no ideological framework for future policies, much less a set of detailed proposals. He has few advisers, in part because so many of the usual contenders have come out against him."
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-09/there-s-n...