I am disappointed by these kind of comments. Being contrarian just for the sake of it doesn't get us anywhere. We cannot anytime someone does something good ask why something we consider better wasn't previously done.
I don't think he is being contrarian just for the sake of it. He is just using the platform to raise awareness about issues which are serious but don't make the same impact into public discussions and don't get similar levels of support. There is nothing bad in bringing more issues to light, and now seems the perfect time for this when the public appetite is ready for such issues.
I see your point but isn't easy to understand that the reason tech companies and YC try to help the ACLU is because charity begins at home? Preventing engineers from working at these companies because of their national origin affects them more than police violence against black people. There surely are other causes more worthy of support outside the US that he did not mention.
A bit of historical context: America was founded in white supremacy. [1] It did better after the Civil War in the Reconstruction [2], and then things got worse again, with Jim Crow [3] in the south and ethnic cleansing everywhere else [4]. The Civil Rights Act [5] marked an era of improvement (sometimes called the Second Reconstruction [6]), but things have recently gotten worse, to the extent that many see us as needing a third Reconstruction [7].
This does not happen mostly through planned racial injustice. It mainly happens through ignorance and a convenient blindness to uncomfortable facts. We help people familiar and dear to us, and ignore the ones who aren't.
I think it's great that Silicon Valley came out strongly in favor of immigrants. They're familiar to us, and we'd be monsters to ignore our neighbors, our co-workers, our ancestors. But muninn_'s right, we have been ignoring some other pretty big injustices. And the ones muninn_ mentioned are groups historically underrepresented in tech. It's no coincidence that we started here.
As we boldly support immigrants, it's a good time to ask, "Oh, who might we have forgotten?" Companies are communities, embedded in a society. This week, we are stepping up to that responsibility. There's nothing wrong with thinking a little about what that really means.
Sometimes people do plan things, although a lot of the stuff I mention was relatively spontaneous. But what sustains it isn't careful planning. It's most people going along with systems they don't understand, impulses they've never considered.
E.g., the impulse where they protect people like them and people familiar to them before people unfamiliar to them. That very rarely comes from a considered plan of "let's screw over black people". But that's often the effect.
No, asking why things were done in the past is a useful exercise to uncover deficiencies in reasoning, process and other areas which can be acted upon for present and future action.
Your argument is essentially "don't ask why my favored party/people/orgs did bad things, just pay attention to the rhetoric they're using now." It's an incredibly cynical position to take, in my opinion.
It's cyclical to be constantly looking back and holding every group to this impossible standard we've constructed for today that is constantly changing. This is the only argument I ever see from Trump supporters: Clinton or Obama or the Democrats did it/would have done it or worse, so it's all okay and you aren't allowed to complain. Never is the argument presented that what is currently being done is right, because it's indefensible.
Why not talk about what is right and talk about doing that? When we read 'all men are created equal' we don't say 'well, the founding fathers hated women so it's okay for me to' or 'the founding fathers had no good ideas and they are trash' we talk about what parts of their ideas had merit and try to improve upon them and do the right thing /today/, from this moment forward.
What makes you think I support Trump? My criticism comes from the left, not the right. The difference between Hillary and Trump has always been one of style and in some areas depth, not substance. Suddenly Hillary's supporters decide to protest and support anti-Trump action, when the entire Democratic establishment supported the very things that have set Trump up for years without a peep. I'm deeply skeptical and do not trust them. Period.
No argument on that specifically. I do take note, and exception, when very vocal supporters of Hillary have a "come to Jesus" moment over Trump's actions. Part of that "critically consider past actions" thing.
There's plenty of evidence pointing towards liberal opposition to Trump's policies being purely contrarian despite their merit. Will you speak up then? Will you point out the hypocrisy and double-standards?
I'm pretty sure such cases will come. But, so far? Which ones would that be? All the meaningful EOs etc that get feedback seem to be quite validly being criticised from a liberal POV. The criticism about the conflicts of interest and inexperience of pending nominations is understandable, even if you probably can disagree reasonably on some.
The pettiest so far seems to be ~5 dems voting against Chao - but that was more about get husband and without consequence.
