There are quite a few Trump supporters in the Valley, but they simply stay quiet because they will get 'racist' yelled at them and it will potentially hurt their careers.
I don't even think we're that rare. The more left leaning folks around here are just _really_ left though, so staying quiet makes more sense most of the time.
Honestly, Trump and Hillary aren't that different. He's a little less of a warhawk, speaks his mind, and is pro-2A. The last one is almost enough on its own for me, given Hillarys stance on that issue.
Given that he's criticized Obama/Clinton for being insufficiently aggressive in several areas, and praised Putin's aggressiveness, I'm not sure where that conclusion comes from, besides his after-the-fact claims to have opposed the Iraq War before it started (his only public statement on the war before it started appears to have been grudging support, not opposition, on the Howard Stern show in 2002, and stating that a decision on the war one way or another was important on Fox News in January 2003, without expressing support or opposition.)
He has criticized John McCain and Lindsey Graham over their pro war stances. In the debates he has mentioned problems with the interventionist foreign policy.
Surprisingly he even attracted support of Michael Scheuer ( a huge critic of our interventionist foreign policy), although I believe he has pulled back a bit on that recently.
However, yes he has also made somewhat contradictory statements as well. So, it is hard to draw any definitive conclusions what his actual policy would look like.
I don't find him credible enough to vote for him. However, what I have observed is that some feel that Clinton is a certainty in continuing our existing foreign policy and that the choice is between certain more war and maybe less war and they are opting for the maybe less war. The one facet he has been mostly consistent on to my knowledge is at least he is not trying to push an aggressive provoking stance against Russia.
It will be very interesting of Gary Johnson can succeed in getting into the debates. If he has a good performance, that could really change everything.
But he lies so much and makes so many factual errors how can you trust him on anything? His pro-torture position seems to show disregard of the 8th amendment is he really going to protect the others and is the 2A that much more important to you than all the others?
I'm no saying that you should like Hillary but congress will probably block gun reform as always and while she spins and dissembles at times it isn't the same outrageous disregard for the truth that I see from Trump.
But isn't that Clinton? We have no real idea of Trump's policies. He barely strings full sentences together, just fragments of thoughts that people turn into the full policies that they want in their own minds.
He makes things up in writing such as who wrote his wife's speech that he really doesn't need to; surely less lies is better than more.
I see the current federal gun control laws as an overreach. So the fact that she's for an additional assault weapon ban, when we should be pulling back on rules is just a total non starter on that issue.
It's just as important as any over constitutionally protected right. With the way the courts are stacked these days I'm not that worried about roe v wade flipping, or a major set back on free speech. Gun issues I only see going in a negative way unless there is a strong pro gun person at the federal level.
> Honestly, Trump and Hillary aren't that different. He's a little less of a warhawk, speaks his mind, and is pro-2A.
They differ massively on energy and climate. Trump makes coal and oil a major focus, and wants to repeal most environmental rules that affect them. Trump would cancel the Paris agreement.
He has espoused a non-interventionalist foreign policy.
Unfortunately though, he is not a man of principle; therefore, I don't have high hopes he would follow through unlike someone like Ron Paul.
So for libertarian leaning voters, some might opt for Trump in hopes of less war. I feel that is a bit of a wildcard though. On the other hand, those same voters likely feel that Clinton is more certain of more war and debt.
He's expressed a lot of contradictory statements, though. His recent rhetoric has been very gung ho about smashing ISIS and the like (to be fair, every candidate, even Sanders, following the Orlando attacks, has said the same). He's talked about killing the families of terrorists and bringing back torture methods worse than waterboarding. He might not be as canny or experienced as Clinton is at wielding this nation's military-intelligence systems to wage war with, but that doesn't mean he won't try, at some point. Trump just doesn't come across as a principled peace candidate.
Not to mention, there seems to be a tendency for third party, or dark horse candidates, to run on non-interventionism. Bernie Sanders, Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, George Wallace, even Charles Lindbergh- I think when one doesn't have previous political commitments to defense contractors and other entrenched pro-interventionist interests, there's no need to suck up on them. Instead, it becomes natural to run on a populist, America first, foreign policy deemphasized campaign to appeal to the common people.
Trump is no longer dark horse, he's no longer fringe. He no longer needs to commit to non-interventionism. If anything, he is currently trying to outmaneuver Clinton as the candidate who can bring terrorism to heel.
Because there has been a collapse in right-leaning libertarianism in the post Ron Paul era. Libertarianism has shifted to the left and there has been an exodus of right-libertarians to various flavors of nationalism.
I think this is one of the major intellectual stories of the last decade, largely uncovered by the media.
I would argue that it is the right's embrace of authoritarianism rooted in nativist and nationalist (some might even say racist) sentiments that pushed libertarians to the left, which is traditionally the sphere of people who have been historically oppressed or just want to be left alone.
>exodus of right-libertarians to various flavors of nationalism.
How does a libertarian become a nationalist? Trump sure seems to facillitate "USA pride" but his politics and economics are not that libertarian at all. How can nationalistic pride win over what I thought was the center of the libertarian philosophy?
Right-libertarians in the US already generally were nationalists (nationalism is a very common, if not defining, element of the right-wing orientation), and generally had the least opposition for government action in the same areas where authoritarian nationalists tend to focus on preferring government action, which is why lots of right-libertarians have always been within the Republican fold rather than voting for the Libertarian Party.
There is a fundamental problem, some would say contradiction, in libertarian reasoning: if you have an open libertarian society with open borders, non-libertarian inclined people who are none the less interested in the prosperity of libertarian societies can move in and eventually destroy that libertarian society.
An internally libertarian society with strong immigration control solves this problem and would be called "nationalist" by most traditional libertarians.
In addition to the sibling comments, there's also the critique of libertarianism as inherently being for those who have "made it." As it, it is easier to agitate for less government regulation and no social welfare net, if one does not benefit from such. And so libertarianism becomes a cover for protecting one's status of privilege. Thus, a shift to "traditional" conservatism which protects that privilege, as typified by nationalism, would be natural for a disgruntled libertarian.
This is one critique that has been made and is of course debatable. It's important to not simply evaluate a political ideology by its tenets, but also the demographics of its supporters, to understand the "culture" that grows around a belief system. We often do the same to religions, after all.
> In addition to the sibling comments, there's also the critique of libertarianism as inherently being for those who have "made it." As it, it is easier to agitate for less government regulation and no social welfare net, if one does not benefit from such. And so libertarianism becomes a cover for protecting one's status of privilege. Thus, a shift to "traditional" conservatism which protects that privilege, as typified by nationalism, would be natural for a disgruntled libertarian.
Yeah, but its a product of the right/authoritarian side of the libertarians.
The left-leaning libertarians who tactically vote Democrat are fine with safety nets:
I'm not sure if they're right in the sense of authoritarian (though certainly the more authoritarian ones make it easier to jump to libertarian). I would think they're right in the sense of being more in favor of unfettered corporate power. Anarcho-capitalism.
Because Peter Thiel, among others, are largely operating on a hybrid ideology with the pillars of Nativism/Nationalism & Libertarianism.
Gary Johnson is pretty much a pure in the middle of the right/left axis among the range that is called "Libertarian". He is too left-leaning for many of the people that call themselves Libertarian but want to be able to enforce their beliefs on other people.
>But want to be able to enforce their beliefs on other people.
Is there not a more contradictory thing to say? I don't know how libertarians are okay with others using their moniker for something that doesn't seem libertarian.
> Is there not a more contradictory thing to say? I don't know how Libertarians are okay with others using their moniker for something that doesn't seem libertarian.
Its doublethink, yes.
Thiel publicly proclaims he is a libertarian but his genuine, underlying belief is he can change the world and enforce his beliefs upon it.
This is pretty much the antithesis of Gary Johnson who is very much the live and let live libertarian.
> I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.”
> But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. By tracing out the development of my thinking, I hope to frame some of the challenges faced by all classical liberals today.
> He is now not so much a libertarian as a corporate Nietzschean, who believes in the power of gifted entrepreneurs to change the world through the sheer force of will and intellect.
Personally, I'd probably align most with Gary Johnson, but feel like he has virtually no chance of winning, so there's no point in wasting my vote. Like most Americans in this election cycle, I'm voting for the lesser of two evils. I think there are lots and lots of folks in Silicon Valley that feel the same way.
One thing that I've never really understood is why the valley apparently leans so far left. On its face, the sorts of policies that the left tends to advocate for would run counter to the things that Silicon Valley stands for: higher taxes, more regulation of businesses, more intervention in housing markets, higher marginal tax rates on "the rich" (AKA a middle class salary here) etc.
I assume that those who vote on the left either feel there are more important issues at stake, that those aren't really things the left stands for, or have enough money that it doesn't matter... would be curious to hear someone explain their reasoning, though.
It doesn't matter if he has a chance to win. If you don't live in a swing state a vote for Gary most definitely counts more then a vote for a candidate of a major party, because if he gets above 5% of the popular vote the Libertarian party gets funding from the government and more recognition. It's the first step to end the 2 party system we have now. You should vote for who you like best, not who you think actually has a chance to win. Gary can still do really well if he gets into the debates. Who knows, in a few months it might actually seem like he has a chance to win.
We're not really going to "end the 2 party system" unless we move from first-past-the-post. We may change which two parties (or, my more realistic hope, change up the particular alliances that make up the two parties).
I appreciate the frank nature of your post. As a left leaning person (though I lean right on nuclear power, drugs, and a few other issues) I'll try to answer as honestly as possible.
> higher taxes
I'm fine with higher taxes for some purposes. As a fairly high income earner, my tax bill hurts quite a bit. Still, when I was a kid I had a single mom. She had to go on welfare for a little while, and it was rough on her. I think it's the first time I ever saw her cry.
Obviously there are some people who abuse the system, but I feel like we have to keep providing anyway. The money that we collected for those few months kept us from being homeless. I like to think it as an investment in my future by the tax payers. I've paid more in now than I took, so it worked out.
> more regulation of businesses
Not always a good thing, but I can get behind some regulations. I think the repeal of Glass-Steagall was probably a mistake (thanks, Bill), and likely contributed to the 2008 bubble burst. Things like the FDA, and OSHA seem like examples of good regulation. They're certainly imperfect, and have made mistakes. On the whole though, I think they've been a net positive.
> more intervention in housing markets
Not much of an opinion on this one.
> higher marginal tax rates on "the rich" (AKA a middle class salary here) etc.
Hillary's plan calls for a 4% tax hike on incomes over $5 million. Software developer salary is pretty good, but I don't think anyone's salary is that high.
Gary will appeal to libertarian leaning, but much less to principled libertarians.
A lot of his recent statements have come across as major disappointments to core libertarians.
Such as his support of Hillary over her emails, reluctance to audit the fed, support for basic income and his VP pick which is seen as purely establishment.
Basic income actually is a pretty Libertarian idea IMO. It gives people the choice to spend their money however, unlike food stamps and other benefits. It's gonna be needed eventually as more jobs are automated as well.
I know it is accepted by some where it is definitely seen as at least better than the existing method of providing support.
However, a lot of libertarians follow a non aggression principle, which says you can't use force or violence against anyone except to protect their liberty.
Basic income isn't compatible with that principle in that you will have to extract that resource by force from other people violating their property rights.
1) Mexican isn't a race - it is a nationality. There are people of all races that are Mexican.
2) Curiels parents were illegal immigrants, and exactly the kind of people that Trump says he would deport.
3) Curiel has mentioned in the past (in a NYT article from the early 2000s, I can find a link if you like) that his Mexican heritage has had an impact in his practice of the law.
4) Curiel isn't a robot. Imagine if he ruled in favor of Trump...how popular would he be at the next family gathering?
5) Was it racist when Justice Sotomayor said that a "wise Latina" could make a better judicial decision than an old white man?
I'm curious which of these points downvoters are disagreeing with. I say this as someone with family members who look very much "Mexican" to most Americans.
I don't like Trump's talk at all, but how would anyone with illegal immigrant parents would have comfortable family gatherings after supporting Trump? Job or not, family is strong.
Point 1: substitute "bigot" for "racist". There's a common but foolish (or self-serving) argument that X can't be racist, because Y isn't a race. A contributing factor is that many people say/write "racist" when they mean "bigot".
The point is that bigotry is no better than racism, so the reader/listener should just substitute the words and see whether the argument still makes sense rather than offering a vacuous counter-argument.
EDIT> French isn't a race, but if I want to round up French people and put them in camps, I'm still a shit-bag.
I'm not sure what you said discounts the fact that what he said is racism. The post he is replying to is asking for an example and he gave one. Also, how is 5 related to this event?
OP was giving reasons why what Trump said in that case was not racism. I'm guessing 5 is related because it shows a sitting supreme court justice saying that her "race"(if we are defining heritage/ethnicity as race) plays an important role in her judicial decisions.
> I'm guessing 5 is related because it shows a sitting supreme court justice saying that her "race"(if we are defining heritage/ethnicity as race) plays an important role in her judicial decisions
Specifically on issues of race or gender discrimination, she holds out that her background -- largely through life experiences, though she is expressly less eager to completely discount the possibility of an inherent or cultural contribution than a particular other commentator -- provides an advantage in the quality of her decisions, sure.
Extended quote from the 2001 speech in which the "wise Latina" remark appears (it was later repeated, on the same issue, several times in other speeches by Sotomayor.):
---
In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.
Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.
---
Certainly, I don't think its particularly controversial to say that, with otherwise equivalent general "wisdom" (insofar as that can be quantified and compared, something that Sotomayor correctly points out is not necessarily realistic), a person with deeper relevant life experience on the subject being addressed might do better.
Key quote is "a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."
I don't think it's fair to argue that gender/national origin can only make a positive impact on judgement, and not a negative impact as well.
> I don't think it's fair to argue that gender/national origin can only make a positive impact on judgement, and not a negative impact as well.
Sotomayor does not argue that. She only argues that personal experience and perhaps cultural/innate differences (she doesn't argue for the latter, just notes that she is less opposed to the idea that it is possible than another who has addressed the issue) make a difference in judging, while stating that she hopes that the difference in the experiences she has due to her background (from those of a white male) would lead to a positive outcome on a particular class of issues.
If that's the case, perhaps we should just use the words that mean the things we want to say, instead of using words that don't mean the things we want to say to say the things we want to say?
It isn't a great start when people leveling criticism at someone don't even understand(or care) about the meanings of the words they say.
Arguing that someone may be biased on the basis of their race is not racism. It's at worst generalizing or ad hominem. This had nothing to do with Curiel being Mexican specifically other than the nature of the circumstances (Trump might have advanced a similar argument about a Muslim judge, for instance).
Progressives going after this specifically was misguided overreach. There's a reasonable basis to assume someone may be biased by their racial heritage. There's so much else Trump has done that is totally egregious that I find it mind-boggling to call him on this specifically. If anything, it gives ammunition to the anti-PC crowd.
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life"
Sorry, you are confusing nationalism with racism. For example, there is nothing racist about border security (the wall). In fact without significant border security, a nation ceases to exist.
Major nations, in the modern era of national and supra-national states, tend to either have their own state or dominate a supranational state, and so tend to have border security (which is necessary for an effective state, though less important to a nation.)
Of course, several centuries in to the era of the nation-state as a dominant form, lots of people confuse states and nations.
Mexico has a massive border wall on its southern border with Guatemala. Is that racist too?
Not sure exactly what you mean by anti-trade, and how it relates to racism.
Mexican is a nationality, not a race. There are Mexicans of all races, including white(which latinos are classed as, but lets say western european ethnicity too)
Islam is a religion, not a race. There are Muslims of all races, including white.
Racism is an overused and abused epithet by both sides. Often, tribalist prejudice crosses across racism, nationalism, ethnocentrism, and religious chauvinism. To avoid these semantic games, let's just call it for what it is at the core: bigotry.
> Mexico has a massive border wall on its southern border with Guatemala. Is that racist too?
A border wall is (independently of whether it is good policy) not inherently racist.
Using racist rhetoric to sell a border wall is, OTOH, racist.
> Mexican is a nationality, not a race.
I'm not sure its particularly productive to argue that a ancestry-based bigotry is technically distinct from racism because it is based on national origin rather than classical races.
> There are Mexicans of all races, including white(which latinos are classed as, but lets say western european ethnicity too)
Hispanics/Latinos aren't necessarily White; in theory, Hispanic origin "ethnicity" is orthogonal to "race". OTOH, the way it is usually broken out into statistics reflects the fact that "Hispanic" is the only "ethnicity" used along US "race" categories specifically because it reflects a new basis of quasi-racial exclusion in the US which became important after the classical racial categories were established, which is why the categories broken out are, almost without exception, "White (non-Hispanic)", "Black", "Asian/Pacific Islander", "Native American/Alaskan Native", and "Hispanic" -- while on forms that you fill out its treated as an orthogonal category to race, its really in the common thinking exactly another racial category.
If you want to argue that security cordons and fences are not a "wall", then fine. There is no wall on the southern border of Mexico. Just a security cordon and fences.
"Mexico has a massive border wall on its southern border with Guatemala." See, here is how it goes. You are a vociferous Trump supporter on the Internet. At the same time, you repeat false things that you heard from some other idiot. It's not much of a leap from there to the conclusion that all Trump supporters are idiots.
Re suits: As far as I know, he was never found guilty in any of those law suits. "Settling" is not an admission of guilt. It could just as easily be the cost/benefit of fighting the lawsuit is not worth it. The government has deep pockets after all.
Re central park 5: Yes, that was a huge blunder(as was that entire case for that matter). Is there any indication it was based on their race, and not the savagery of the crime they were accused of?
Re birther: What does that have to do with race? "American" isn't a race.
Like I said, a generous suspicion. I can also suspect that had McCain been elected he would not have been dogged with insinuations about his citizenship, forced to proffer his birth certificate, referred to as a "Panamanian" by his detractors, etc. etc. for practically the duration of his first term.
NOTE: I think arguments about whether Donald Trump is a racist are a red herring. Obviously not all of Trump's supporters are racist, and any claim that they are is ridiculous and counterproductive. I don't really care if Donald Trump is a racist or not. I have issues with his policies, which is what I think people should be talking about.
Anyway, you asked for examples of situations where Trump has encouraged racial division, so I'm going to try to present some examples without any name-calling or hyperbole.
In addition to Gonzalo Curiel, he's made a few other remarks to which some people have taken offense.
The republican party is mostly pro-legal immigration. The official party stance is that legal immigration is good for business and increases the supply of labor. Trump distinguished himself early on in the primary by supporting a border wall between the US and Mexico. To explain his position, he stated that "Mexico is not sending us their best people." He went on to say that many people illegally crossing the border are rapists and murderers. Undoubtedly some people who illegally cross the border have committed such offenses, but it seems unlikely that a significant portion of the 11 million illegal immigrants currently in the US are rapists and murderers.
Trump has also voiced support for deporting all 11 million illegal immigrants in the US. This is much more hard-line than most other recent republican presidential candidates. The amount of money and resources that would be required to locate, round up, and deport 11 million people would likely be very high. Furthermore, many of these illegal immigrants have given birth to children since they got here, which makes their children legal US citizens. Trump has yet to clarify how he is going to deal with these split-citizenship families.
At another point, Trump supported a temporary ban on all Muslims entering the country. He initially said that we would ask people if they were Muslim, and if they said yes, we wouldn't let them into the country. He has since changed his plan to only involve stricter checks on people who are emigrating from war-torn areas.
I'm not entirely sure if this is due to Trump doing something to alienate African American voters, or if Hillary is just extremely popular with them (her husband was the president who signed Affirmative Action and a handful of other anti-discrimination bills). Regardless of the cause, Trump has very low approval among African American voters. According to an NBC News/Wallstreet Journal poll last week, Donald Trump is polling at literally 0% with African American voters in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, which are critical swing states.
There's also the issue of Barack Obama's birthplace. Donald Trump was one of the most famous proponents of the idea that President Obama was born in Kenya, and was therefore not a US citizen, and not eligible to be president. He demanded that Obama provide his birth certificate, which was eventually made public. Trump then argued that this was a short form version, and he didn't believe it was authentic. Trump has also stated that he does not believe President Obama graduated from Columbia University. Trump has distanced himself from these positions lately. He hasn't apologized or said that he no longer believes these things, but he doesn't talk about them and refuses to answer questions about it.
Yup...and I'm quite curious how the author squares these two lines:
> [Thiel] will become the most prominent public face of a species so endangered it might as well be called extinct: the Silicon Valley Trump supporter.
and
> The danger, then, is that not only could Mr. Thiel’s public embrace of Mr. Trump backfire on him, but it could also become another plot point in the larger story line that Silicon Valley is exclusionary and narrow-minded and that its innovations are advancing global inequality.
So...the author thinks that there are almost no Trump supporters in the valley, and also thinks that a single public supporter of Trump will lead to people believing that Trump is the problem with Silicon valley...
That actually does make sense, negative signalling is powerful, there are many blaming silicon valley for all sorts of problems in society (AI killing jobs, rents in the bay area rising etc) and it would be easy to then take the views of a prominent valley figure and superimpose them onto all of the valley, even if <0,01% support trump.
Which is not an incorrect assessment. People consistently fall for the trap of taking the worst possible exponent of a group and extrapolating what the whole group looks like. With Bernie Sanders supporters, it was the "Bernie bro", with Hillary Clinton it's the "nothing's wrong with her, she's perfect" supporters, with Trump is the cesspool of hatred that is /r/the_donald (people celebrating pictures of a guy armed with an assault-style rifle wearing a "cuckhunter" shirt at the RNC convention... let that sink in.)
Tech workers already receive quite a bit of hate from some people (harassing at shuttle stops has become a semi-regular thing, I've been called a "fucking techie" when bar hopping, etc.) The last thing we need is the same people associating us with a political candidate who openly demonizes immigrants, insults women and disabled people, and who repeats "I'm RICH! SO RICH!" every time he's given an opportunity.
I'm all for Peter Thiel supporting whoever he wants, but I definitely don't want him to be the representative for the majorly progressive Silicon Valley population.
Allow me to meander a ways with extending what I view as your point:
Should employers use whatever public records they have available to punish employees who donate money to the wrong party or candidates? Perhaps they should use this information in hiring?
If political support is fair game for attacking people in other aspects of their lives, why as a society should we allow for votes to be made in secret?
Maybe we should force people to vote on public record so we can really punish or reward each individual for his or her political choices.
I didn't mean to suggest employers should consider it. I meant, for example, voters and consumers holding Trump-supporting politicians and public figures in lower regard and voting with their votes & dollars.
Ones career being affected by a political opinion is very dangerous, especially since the goal-posts are constantly being moved by the thought-police.
It's understandable how political opinions can affect how we view our peers, sometimes I question how a rational person could, for example, vote for Hillary Clinton. That does not change that persons professional proficiency nor would I hinder their career in any way because of it. It's a shame some people don't feel it inappropriate to cause harm because someone does not subscribe to their world view.
>It's understandable how political opinions can affect how we view our peers[...]
That's how it happens. Even if you try to be impartial, it's hard to give someone the same respect and give them as much of a chance after they have a differing opinion from you. Not that you shouldn't try, but it's difficult.
That's why you have to go out of your way to talk to people you don't agree with.
When you have an 'ugh' moment, you should notice this and put it to work.
Some of my most interesting conversation have come from talking to persons who completely rejected the ideas I consider to be self evident.
There are definite conflicts of interest that cannot be resolved but there are also major spheres of thought that 'the other side' does not even consider because they are orthogonal to their thinking.
Gradually I have incorporated some of the enemy's thinking into my own conception of the world. If an idea is relevant it tends to seep in without you being consciously aware of it. If you've ever read old internet posts or comments you'd have made and thought "who the fuck is that guy and how is he/she so wrong" then you get it.
The narrative in this country is people who dont agree with the liberal establishment are mentally ill in the form of racism, sexism, etc. This is the level of political discourse we put up with.
This formulation implies they are victims of people irrationally yelling 'racist' at them. They just said they supported a particular political candidate! How unfair of the mob to slur them!
You elide the underlying cause: they keep quiet to avoid having 'racist' yelled at them, because being a Trump supporter is supporting racism.
This argument is often double-downed with "You're sexist if you don't support Hillary". You don't want to be a racist/sexist, right? Vote Hillary!
Both arguments are increasingly why so many people are supporting Trump. They are emotional appeals based on presumptions that aren't necessarily true - and are more irritating than compelling. It also hurts the image of legitimate social issues. When everything is racist/sexist then being racist/sexist no longer holds any meaning.
This is a man who has demonstrated an extraordinary and heretofore unrivaled degree of ignorance and stupidity on the public stage. Clinton's no angel herself, but at least she has a brain. I think there's an IQ hurdle a potential candidate needs to clear and even though it's relatively low, Trump has managed the astonishing feat of not being able to meet it. That alone disqualifies him. Any further arguments are irrelevant.
That's why one feels compelled to assume that Trump supporters - the ones we would otherwise assume are reasonably intelligent at least - must have an ulterior rationale for their vote. The most obvious explanation is closet bigotry.
If there is much squirming much of it has to be dishonest, because the popular attitudes that I see displayed in the Valley and here on HN are rather in line with Trump's anti-PC, dismissive-of-sexism-or-racism-claims, anti-afirmative action, pro-business, pro-money rhetoric.
True. Not saying it can't happen. I just think it's unlikely. I think Johnson is currently polling somewhere around 10%? I guess the big hurdle will be getting in the debates like Perot did. Not sure what the current rules are for that.
I think you underestimate the size of the "precariat" that feels it's on a trajectory towards becoming economically and culturally disenfranchised. The educated elites are quite disconnected with the population from the lower half of the "middle class" and downward. Look at what's happening in the Internet driven media of today. The lion's share of the volume online is outrage politics.
It's the young and economically squeezed vote you need to keep track of, both on the right and left. Trump and Sanders both knew this.
He is at 13% now and needs only to be at 15% to enter the national spotlight of increased media coverage and access to the general debates. His polling numbers are increasing with a notable momentum as general support of the Republican candidate and Democratic candidate are both at all time lows.
As long as the majority of voters think of Trump as a broke racist narcissist and Clinton as an apathetic or unethical elitist he may well have a chance.
13% huh? That's a bit better than I thought. Definitely sounds like he has a shot of making it to 15%. I'm all for it. I'd love to have him in the debates. I really liked this ad they made:
To save everyone else the click: I had heard the 13% figure before, but it was for favorable demographics (like younger people or Bernie supporters), so I was expecting the link to contradict you.
But no, the 13% was one poll's result for Johnson's general support, not simply a favorable demographic for him.
The other clowns who ran for the Libertarian party nomination make it really hard to take Gary Johnson seriously. That he is their candidate really just says he meets the very, very low bar that was set by the other candidates.
A two-time governor running with another two-time governor as his VP? Both former Republicans overwhelmingly re-elected in Democratic states? Both fiscally conservative and socially liberal?
Not to mention that, while I do not personally agree with Gary Johnson on many (I consistently score the lowest with him on the I side with quiz) of his policies, it's hard to ignore that quite a few of the policies he has enacted as Governor have actually worked quite well. Admittedly, I have not researched this much. I simply haven't had time this summer and when I did look at this, back in May, it didn't look like he'd get to 15%.
Both he and his running mate (Bill Weld) are 2-term governors. I don't know why their primary opponents McAfee or Petersen would detract from that. Are you under the impression that they chose their opponents?
Who has the better chance of hitting 15% and getting into the debates, Johnson or Jill Stein? Honest question, in case I am ever polled I want to choose the most likely alternative.
Given the libertarian/Randian streak that runs through silicon valley, support for Trump doesn't seem too outlandish. Especially when you consider his non-dedication to the typical right-wing 'family values' that aren't really popular in that region of California.
Depends if by Northern California you mean SV. Travel further north to the foothills and it's pretty traditional. As someone who grew up in Placer County and now lives in the bible belt the main difference in political culture is that conservatives here are much more into the religious fire and brimstone narratives.
When he says things like "I will force company X to do Y" I find it hard to take him seriously as a small government or pro-property-rights candidate.
My personal prediction is that if elected he will grow the size of government dramatically, quite likely more than Sanders would have if elected and certainly more than Clinton (who is the "conservative" candidate in this election if that means status quo). He will also grow the power of government, which is more important and significant.
Are you referring to the tariffs he wants to impose to prevent companies from exploiting cheap labor in Mexico or the national security concerns he expressed wrt Apple or something else I'm not aware of?
He's so inconsistent with his rhetoric that it's hard to say. But the libertarian impression exists in the negative: Clinton's style is decidedly not libertarian, and Trump is a businessman by trade so I think in the mind of voters "it stands to reason."
> I think the public has a basic capacity for logic and that's as basic as it gets.
Trump is literally lying about his opposition to the Iraq war and his supporters don't care. He also picked a running mate who voted for the Iraq war, despite criticizing his opponent for it.
I try not to paint an entire populous with a broad brush. But logic doesn't appear to be something that, on average, is exhibited by the voters.
Being included in the debates is not winning. I consider myself to be mostly a Libertarian, but I have no illusions. Short of some beyond comprehension post-singularity-ish event, no Libertarian will ever win the Presidency.
> Short of some beyond comprehension post-singularity-ish event, no Libertarian will ever win the Presidency.
Partisan realignments in which a major party is displaced are not "beyond comprehension post-singularity events" (heck, even the kind of electoral reforms that would end duopoly aren't, though they are unprecedented within the US, unlike major realignments) even if its been 150 years since the last one in the US.
I'm hesitant to believe anyone who says definitively what trump 'is'. Because there is no voting record to speak of legislation wise, everything is just speculation based on what he says. And he says a lot of things.
Well, one way in which we validate people's trustworthiness is whether their word matches their deed. Trump's words are inconsistent among themselves, and he has zero actions to put any of them against.
- He's in favor of punishing success, represented for example by his threats toward Amazon.
- He panders to religion. Rand was an atheist and was very strongly anti-conservative.
- Rand was very strongly in favor of immigration, especially when mixed with Capitalism.
- He's in favor of drastically increasing government control over the Internet, represented in his numerous quips about shutting down the Internet or otherwise restricting it.
- He has demonstrated a bent against freedom of speech, over and over again. Rand regarded free speech as the the single most important right.
- He's in favor of public healthcare systems. Rand was staunchly against all forms of entitlements, and all forms of socialized healthcare.
- He's a supporter of Social Security and Medicare. Rand was against both, overwhelmingly.
- He's more than fine with significant government regulation of the economy. Rand believed in laissez-faire Capitalism.
This list just keeps going.
Trump could hardly be more anti-Rand. I'd probably be willing to argue that Sanders is less anti-Rand than Trump is.
I see points of similarity on foreign policy, where they both stood out as less interventionist than other candidates (even Democrats). Trump and Rand both said they'd let America's allies look after themselves.
> I'd probably be willing to argue that Sanders is less anti-Rand than Trump is.
You'd be correct. On social and personal issues Sanders is very compatible with Randian forms of "libertarianism." He supports ending the drug war and womens' reproductive rights (personal sovereignty over one's body) and the right to make personal choices around things like sexuality, religion, etc.
His economics are far from Rand's but probably not much further (if at all) than Clinton or Trump. It'd probably be a wash there. There were/are no economic libertarians in this race as competitive candidates.
Rand was also not a fan of nationalism, which she regarded as collectivism. I'm not sure how anyone could get nationalism out of Rand except insofar as she believed that a government had a duty to protect its citizens. Beyond that she distrusted the idea of a nation as a component of identity, considering it collectivist.
This is interesting to me. The lack of diversity in the tech industry is definitely something that will be harmful in the long run. Diversity is necessary to improve the relevance of new ideas in tech and to promote them to broader audiences from different cultures.
The trend towards making a pariah out of anyone with opposing points of view can be equally harmful to promoting diversity of thought. Making people afraid of speaking their minds can hardly help the flow of new ideas or positively impact the industry. While I likely don't agree with the political ideology of a speaker at the RNC, I definitely agree with the right of anyone to do so without being held captive by the threat of activism at home. Boycotting and protesting people with different political views may feel good in the short run, but it is unhelpful to promoting freedom and equality in the long run.
If they can't say what I find reprehensible today, how do I know that views I hold dear will be "allowed" in the future?
The lack of diversity in the tech industry is definitely something that will be harmful in the long run.
My intuition is that the harm has already been done, but we will only fully understand it 10 years hence.
Making people afraid of speaking their minds can hardly help the flow of new ideas or positively impact the industry.
There seem to be a lot of people online who have been indoctrinated to believe that pressuring/intimidating/shaming people into compliance is a useful means of changing people's minds. History tells us that it never works that way. You change people's minds through friendly interaction, by living and working with them.
Wait. What does the relevance of a new idea have to do with the ethnic composition of the people with the idea? Isn't that a racist statement? Fascinating.
My favorite part about the liberal mind are its obvious contradictions and, thus, the unintended consequences of its thought process.
But don't you think people need to be held accountable? You can't just let Trump supporters off-the-hook because it's just their opinion! Many of us would never belittle someone voting for Mccain or Romney who are accomplished and respectable, even if they may hold differing political views. Trump is a totally vacuous, exceedingly risky candidate. People should feel embarrassed voting and supporting him.
From Peter Thiels perspective its a smart move because he's the only one willing to do something this crazy. This gives him a "monopoly" (as he likes to say) on political access as it relates to the tech world if Trump wins. In short it looks like a bet. Personally I find Trump an archetype of everything I'm trying to get away from in life.... but that is not the point. Also this is just my opinion and maybe their is no greater agenda and Peter Thiel just likes him.
That is interesting. I hadn't come across that idea before. He's effectively shorting American democracy and rule of law. If he wins, he will collect a huge windfall (aside from the access, imagine all the contracts that Palantir will win). If he loses, he still has his status in the Valley, where he hasn't been ostracized for heterdox ideas.
+1 good comment! I read Thiel's Zero to One book twice, and you might have nailed the reason.
BTW, off topic, but this campaign is crazy. I don't like either Clinton or Trump, and have mentioned to friends and family that I will leave the presidential part of the ballot in November blank or vote for Jill Stein. It just seems wrong to me to vote for someone I simply don't like. For this honesty, I have several friends who are all over my case for 'wasting my vote.'
Your vote actually counts for more, at least in non-swing states. If Stein gets 5% of the popular vote (not electoral collage) the Green party gets funding next election and more recognition as a party. It's the first step to ending the two party system. You're right to vote who you like best, not who you think actually has a chance to win.
I also came to a similar conclusion this morning, I think he realizes that a Trump presidency is a huge opening for power since Trump will be largely reliant on his advisors to make any kind of decision when it comes to the implementation details of his proposals.
What he might want to use this power for, is less clear, he is not quite the classic Libertarian people here seem to think he is. He strikes me as more of the Hoppe variety, or even a post-Libertarian ala Moldbug.
I don't think you're wrong but I think there is more to it than that. This isn't a short term speculation.
If you have a classical education (reading lots of old books) then this is all perfectly comprehensible. The story Thiel tells is also intuitively comprehensible to blue collar workers without being fortified by intellectual assistance. Having both a classical reading library and a blue collar background everything I have seen so far makes perfect sense.
If however you're part of what the WaPo describes as:
"The one publicly acceptable reason seems to be that Silicon Valley needs to become more than an ossified monoculture of liberal upper-class privileged ethnic groups.
“Tech industry is primarily out of touch by being too far to the Left,” tweeted investor Keith Rabois, in a conversation about Thiel."
Then nothing will ever make sense, just as the Remain voters in Brexit literally find their loss incomprehensible. There is nothing wrong with being left oriented politically, it's a perfectly acceptable set of values that society often requires but if you're surrounded by people identical to yourself you're unlikely to get substantive negative feedback.
I have to say that in experience the middle classes are much more resistant to the realization everything is not improving outside of computers despite the evidence surrounding them. When they see troubles ahead they want to shoot the messengers, usually by describing individuals as mentally ill or conjuring up bogeymen like the Nazis, they are extremely resistant to the idea we are dealing with a systemic problem. A decline is not in their portfolio or in their suite of mental models.
> Mr. Thiel will have a direct line to a chief executive who hints at a penchant for making big things happen for his supporters.
Look at this masterfully subtle insinuation that Trump will be corrupt.
The NY Times never fails to impress.
> This year there was an opportunity for a Republican to make overtures to tech — but with Mr. Trump, that chance seems to have passed.
>[...]
>it almost seems like he’s gone out of his way to smite Silicon Valley leaders on the issues they care about,
Yes, like bringing in scores of cheap H1Bs as veritable indentured servants (their right to reside in the country is is tied to their employer). This drives down wages – of course SV VCs and founders want this.
Of course the NY Times does not elaborate at all on this point
> “As a black guy in Silicon Valley, I just find it very hard to support a candidate who has been called racist,” Mr. Johnson said.
Well, it is not surprising why Thiel supports Trump: SELF INTEREST. It _has_ to be.
Thiel seems like a remarkably smart guy who would never fall for the fool BS coming out "The Donald's" mouth. He must be in it for the influence he can leverage out of the orangutan-man from being a delegate, an influential SV player and and sizable donor.
What will really be interesting is the (what I expect to be) PURE pandering baloney he gives during his speech at the RNC. Obviously, he can't just say "the real reason" he supports Trump.
It is in my self interest to live in a county not divided along racial lines, where rule of law exists, where rioters are not given "space to destroy", where people are judged on their merit rather than on the color of their skin, where our military is powerful and deters threats from abroad, and where I can go out with my friends and family and not get run over or shot and tortured by a deranged Islamist lunatic.
The line in question:
" 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."
There's a certain conservative mentality that delights in being more-reactionary-than-thou.
When I encounter it I tend to say things like "Oh, the real problem started when we adopted agriculture in 6000BC. It was Big Government that wanted us to drop the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and submit to the state. And don't get me started on the invention of reading and writing..."
That's pretty much what the ideology of primitivism is about. They advocate a return to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
John Zerzan (/'z??rz?n/, zur-z?n; born 1943) is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of hunter-gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look like. Some subjects of his criticism include domestication, language, symbolic thought (such as mathematics and art) and the concept of time. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zerzan
That doesn't necessarily follow, but I'm curious to hear the answer. You can think people should be allowed to do something, but that them doing that thing is harmful.
For example, look at all the people that lamented the fact that plebs voted for Brexit. A lot of anti-democracy talk around the time of that vote.
There's nothing necessarily good about democracy. A majority voting for something doesn't make the outcome legitimate or good. You could ask gay people in California about that.
That's a good point about Brexit because I noted even here on HN a great deal of overt resentment toward people who are older who largely voted #leave - as though their votes were less valid because of their age.
That is a reasonable point if you consider Brexit is a hard-to-reverse decision. Older voters have to live with the consequence of their vote for much less long, and unlike an ordinary political vote, the outcome can't be reversed in another five years. Older voters have a different balance of interests between "Stick it up the bureaucrats to blow steam off" and "Irreversibly change the UK's relationship with Europe" than younger voters.
Maybe we should've weighted votes by projected life expectancy...
On the other hand, the vote also affects people who can't vote or aren't even born yet, and there's no weighting system that can deal with that. Maybe that's a reason not to have referenda on these sorts of questions.
If older people make voting decisions based upon a decreased impact in long-term consequences, how does that square with the statistically provable riskier behavior engaged in by younger people? If anything, I find that older people care more about the long term because they tend to think in terms of impacts on their progeny. It's just as likely that older people have decades of experience from when the UK was not a member of the EU and have relevant experience that tells them that the UK will be just fine without the EU. There are dozens of ways to spin it and show that older people might have a better perspective on a given issue.
But this is exactly the kind of cherry-picking arguing that healthy societies shouldn't indulge in. Women have the basic human right of being able to vote. As do old people. We respect everyone's right to vote despite the fact that people tend to vote in their self-interests and aren't always that logical in doing so.
Maybe we should've weighted votes by projected life expectancy...
> If anything, I find that older people care more about the long term because they tend to think in terms of impacts on their progeny
That's why Millenials are currently thriving and have such immense gratitude to the boomer generation for forward thinking policies that ensured prosperity going forward.
That's why Peter Thiel not only speaks intelligently but also takes action. While I have serious misgivings about the move, I stand in awe of the courage he has. I suspect it comes from the same reservoir he drew from to invest in SpaceX over a decade ago when it looked insane to people, or to start Paypal. I don't always agree with the man, but I have tremendous respect for both his genius and his courage.
Doing what you believe when most your peers agree with you is easy. It's about having a view, knowing it's unpopular and still having the courage to publicly state it and face the mob that is extraordinary.
People who do that sometimes change the world (and other times get burnt at the stake).
when will the world learn that the man is a liability (Thiel not Trump). Speaking of blaming the 1% this guy (compared to other influencers like E Musk) is a serious threat to world peace.
Palantir is to the US what Volkswagen was to the Nazis. Let's remember drones, Palantir and Thiel every time we speak of neocon cunts like Thiel: https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/
Over-the-top rhetoric and gratuitous Godwinning make this a terrible post for HN. Please don't post like this here—it's not what this site is for.
Beyond that, this is a bannable offense:
> neocon cunts like Thiel
We're not banning you for it because I don't see many comments like it in your history, but please don't post anything like this—I mean this entire comment—again.
Yesterday, Trump argued that the United States should investigate every American who practices Islam. "We really have to look at profiling," Trump told CBS's "Face the Nation." And that the government should investigate mosques in the U.S.
Never before has a major party’s presumptive nominee for president of the United States urged that an entire religion be singled out for investigation. Each day, it seems, Trump comes closer to the fascism America went to war against in 1941. Why doesn’t Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and every Republican leader withdraw their endorsement of him and disavow this hatefulness? To nominate this bigot for the highest office in America is a slap in the face of American values, constitutional rights, and the pluralism America stands for. Trump must be dumped.
"
"
One by one, Republican leaders are falling in line behind a man who says undocumented workers “bring drugs, crime, they’re rapists;” who claimed “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated the Twin Towers collapsing; who says black criminals are responsible for 81 percent of homicides against whites, which turns out to be a racist myth from white supremacist website; who tells a Jewish group "I'm a negotiator, like you folks;" who bullies, humiliates, and threatens his opponents, including a federal judge now hearing a case against one of his businesses; who suggested President Obama wasn’t born in the United States, that childhood vaccinations cause autism, and that human-caused climate change is a hoax; and whose hateful and demeaning attitude toward women is best summed up in an interview where he said “women, you have to treat them like shit.”
By falling into line behind Trump, Republican leaders are lending legitimacy to such hatefulness, bigotry, and lies. Shame on them.
"
I don't disagree with you (I refuse to vote for Trump or Clinton).
It was interesting to hear the the Muslim speaker at the republican convention last night. I didn't think that his speech was so good but later he made some nice points on a CNN interview. Anyway, I was surprised to see him as a speaker.
We've already established that you're an idiot. You're just reinforcing the fact if you continue to claim that a "security cordon" is the same thing as a wall.
I don't follow: is the opposition to the wall grounded on a distinction between a cordon and a wall? Is the argument that, "walls are great, but not that high"? If not, then this seems like a distinction without a difference.
How much of a wall were you hoping for? Most of their border consists of nothing but a graded road through the forest, much like the American border with Canada.
I don't know where I hoped for any kind of wall. I was asking for an internally consistent criticism of Trump's proposal so as to understand the logic behind it -- ideally, a worldmodel under which Trump's proposal is atrocious, but which doesn't generalize to criticism of all expenditure on border protection.
Can you help me with that point? I'm not interested in getting into the woods of what is or isn't "a wall" or what people can or can't call a "cordon".
I don't give a hoot about any of that stuff you want. I'm responding to some dupe who has fallen for an Internet hoax claiming to show a gigantic wall on the Mexico/Guatemala border. There is no such wall.
That's an egregious violation of the HN guidelines and a bannable offense, but since I don't see a pattern of it in your other comments, we won't ban you for this. Please, though, don't post anything like this again. Comments here need to remain respectful regardless of how wrong or mistaken somebody else is:
Maybe he's betting on Trump bringing Palantir more business with the concentration camps Trump plans to build. Or he might just be a stupid, racist asshole who can relate to Trump and enjoys others' suffering. Who knows what makes scumbags like this tick?
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