[ElComradio]

Almost nobody will agree with the idea that in an ideal world built upon the "marketplace of ideas" that someone should be constrained from expressing political opinions for fear of losing their employment.

In fact this being so is a primary driver of Trump's anti-PC appeal.

[tptacek]

Nobody is losing their employment in this discussion. Thiel doesn't even have equity in YC. His part-time partner status is a marketing arrangement, a co-endorsement. All that Sam Altman is being asked to do is to reconsider endorsing Thiel.

Meanwhile, all sorts of misconceptions are behind the appeal of Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a monster. I do not think reasonable people are required to change their behavior to assuage the misconceptions of his deluded followers.

[hueving]

>Donald Trump is a monster.

Such thoughtful discussion backed by so many supporting arguments.

[tptacek]

You think this a damning argument. But no reasonable reader thinks we couldn't blow the thread up to 1000 more comments, each choc-a-bloc with vivid details, about the terrible flaws of Donald Trump.

The reason I'm not taking the bait is that the debate on this thread isn't about Donald Trump, and I'm not going to help you muddy the waters.

No, I mean what I've said repeatedly. If you support Donald Trump, or even just think he's no worse than Hillary Clinton, I'll agree to disagree with you and move on. But Sam Altman does not agree with you. Sam Altman compares Donald Trump to a dictator. Paul Graham compared him to Stalin.

The debate is about whether Altman can continue to endorse an important member of Trump's campaign while still believing that Trump is an existential threat to democracy. If Altman is sanguine about a Trump presidency, his support for Thiel is understandable. I don't think that he is.

[nathanaldensr]

By all means, vote for your clean-as-the-wind-driven-snow candidate Clinton.

Your willingness to stoke the red-vs-blue fires is why the US has ended up where we are. In other words, you're part of the problem.

[ElComradio]

Fair enough re: employment, but if we shift "employed by" to "do business with" it's still the same discussion.

A theme going on here is a binary state regarding how we should treat individuals and consider their positions. This idea of "endorsing" Thiel means you are supporting all of his political views and not just his business views. That if one supports Trump one is all-in on all of his positions.

For example, many of Trump's supporters are identifying with his economic message. They may find his immigration stance to be distasteful but the overriding concern is the economy, so they are willing to suck it up. Trump's bloc isn't a monolithic group with shared priorities.

Altman's position on this is exactly correct- expressing his disagreement with Thiel but with the maturity to quash the urge to run away from or "punish" Thiel. We would be better off as a society if we all adopted this mindset.

[tptacek]

If we shift "employment" to "do business with", we have formulated an argument that boycotts are unethical. So, no, I don't think that gets us anywhere.

[ElComradio]

Boycotts are designed to force a _business_ to change behavior.

If we extend this into the realm of the individual and political speech, it is a totally different animal with clear dangers for freedom of expression.

I am not myself sure if I would consider it a moral failing to "boycott" an individual as a pressure tactic in these circumstances (or more like misguided social engineering) but it is definitely laudable to take a more nuanced view as Altman and YC have done.

[tptacek]

Businesses are made of people. But your argument is even less coherent than that. When people boycotted Nestle, they were supporting a campaign whose intended impact could have put thousands of people out of work, many of whom had no opposition at all to the boycotter's ideas. Boycotting a company is an even more grave act than criticizing some dude with more than one McLaren about endorsing a Trump campaign surrogate who could most likely buy McLaren Automotive. But we tolerate and accept boycotts, as we must, because they are a form of political speech.

[ElComradio]

It is totally fine to take action against a business; that the business is comprised of people who have no direct input into the actions of the entity and may face consequences of the actions against it should not be an important consideration of where you choose to spend your money.

A counterexample would be a situation where someone went and figured out that most of Nestle's employees were supporting Trump and then boycotted the business as a way to pressure those employees into altering their positions. That is much closer to being morally objectionable.

Outside of that, Altman _has_ criticized Thiel's views, directly. The disagreement seems to be about what to do afterwards. He is simply not willing to cut him off for this disagreement. If this way of thinking was a social norm, you would eliminate "anti-PC" griping which is important to a good chunk of Trump supporters, and you would likely see positive social change happen more rapidly (e.g. if this was the norm 50 years ago you might have seen more movement on gay marriage, etc. if people could pipe up without fear of being fired (or "boycotted")).

[e40]

Can we stop with the straw man of people getting fired for their views! That is so over the top as to be ridiculous.

[jshevek]

We have seen many examples in the last decade of "enemies of the left" being fired and no platformed for their views. This campaign targeting Thiel appears to be a product of the same value system, so it is understandable that some people consider it relevant to the discussion.

[kasey_junk]

I really really hate to wade into this, but can you define either "enemies of the left", "the left" or give explicit examples of what you are describing?