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Discussion (51 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/elon-musk...
> Peter Thiel wrote an essay in which he said he no longer believed that freedom and democracy were compatible and suggested that women and other people getting the right to vote marked the end of freedom being a thing you can have with democracy.
This is true that Peter Thiel wrote ti
> At least, of course, as we can see for white men, he was talking about.
This is spin. He wasn't talking about white men. He was talking that as long as people are allowed to vote to take things from others to give to themselves they will.
And, it can be argued, that in the end that will end up with worse outcomes for everyone. (not saying this is true, I'm saying it can be argued that it's a possibility)
https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
> 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.
(edited to remove a redundant word)
These “pro” business advocates never seem to want to pay for that service. That Thiel is gay is even more egregious.
Thiel is supported of that. He happily votes to take others and give himself.
Flagging is systematically used to remove certain topics. This is just another instance of that.
I've been in this field for 15 years and it's about as far left as any industry can get. We were doing land acknowledgments at product demos a few years ago.
https://electrek.co/2026/07/27/tesla-partly-settles-racism-l...
The agency also alleged the factory was effectively segregated, with an area where Black workers were concentrated known internally as the “porch monkey station.” Workers reported coworkers displaying Confederate flag tattoos to intimidate them.
The EEOC’s own federal complaint, filed in September 2023 in the Northern District of California, adds graffiti: swastikas, threats, and nooses scrawled around the facility, going back to at least 2015. Then-EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows called it “shameful racial bigotry.”
Among more than 200 worker declarations gathered in the state case, about two-thirds said they saw anti-Black graffiti. Dozens said complaining got them retaliated against, including fired.
The Teamsters went for Trump in 24. Having a union doesn't mean you're immune from facism.
At the leadership level there are a ton of illiberal people who think that things like democracy are bad and spend huge sums of money to push these belief.
I don't understand how you say that with a straight face when Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are around.
You can look at how, eg, “woke” values (ie, that “left wing” ideology) is directly driving the erasure of Japanese culture by self-appointed white people who Know Better (TM). When their major export is colonialist erasure of other cultures, I don’t take the performative-but-useless land acknowledgments as anything but metaphoric white hoods.
They happily burned many Asian small businesses while chanting “Black Lives Matter!” those same years.
Even the billionaires were mostly donating to Kamala. Yes Elon was a giant blast of cash but his rightward shift is not representive of the industry.
And are we forgetting that Stephen Miller kicked him out anyway?
Tech religiously believes in science, education, immigration. The values are fundamentally incompatible with the right.
But for whatever reason the left has decided that we failed some purity test or simply wants to pick on "the nerds". I don't know what the strategy is here, but it doesn't seem like a good one.
Personally, I think the gap is between the leadership and the rank and file software engineers - the heady days of the post dotcom boom and bust where there was heavy overlap between those two categories are over, and a lot of Silicon Valley looks like traditional business now - an owner class that is setting the pace and the tone and the direction without much input and an employed class that is doing the work and lacks the raw mobility we saw at the height of the boom and bust (i.e. the perpetual capacity to walk off the job immediately into a new one).
Plus, I strongly suspect that some of it is reaction. These companies are based in the US. When the people of the United States have elected Donald Trump twice, one does start to wonder if the correct business decision is to follow the populism. Perhaps skepticism of the efficacy of democracy is justified when this is what democracy has yielded.
Today of course it's difficult because if you don't give Donnie a gift basket he blows a temper tantrum and hits you with tariffs.
The rank-and-file are just too ignorant and racist to realize they’re fascists — eg, their erasure of Japanese culture and arson attacks by masked paramilitaries against Asian small businesses in 2020.
If you think calling yourself an “anti fascist” while burning minority businesses is opposing fascism, you probably also think North Korea is a democratic republic.
Angry, historically ignorant, and stupid.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46066482
The filtering process that’s been happening here over the years could be studied.
I started the NOVC Alliance[0] for people like me that want to build software outside of the mainstream SV/VC culture. Think of it as "BPA Free" for software.
[0] https://novc.fyi
I see your NOVC Alliance is all about no VC funding. But what about other investors?
... But I'll admit that what those problems are I can't rightfully say.
- Article: https://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2026/02/16/amer... - HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47198912