[justinhj]

As Trump said in his recent speech in Michigan "We have to make life good for our smart people." These are executives and investors who have created trillions in value with their technology based products and services. Their interests align with mine.

[woodruffw]

You're entitled to believe that. But you might want to consider whether this is (1) uniformly true for HN's readership demographic, and (2) uniformly true for the American electorate.

[cdrini]

Hmm why should they consider those things? They stated their opinion and priorities, which will likely influence their voting decision. The views of HN or the American electorate play no role in the statement of that individual's priorities, no?

[woodruffw]

I think the simplest answer here is “almost everyone’s revealed preference is for living in a deliberative democracy, not a demagogic one.”

In other words: GP probably wants, in an ordinary setting, to have their views understood (why bother responding at all if not?). In which case they should similarly set aside some space for understanding why others don’t share them.

[cdrini]

I'm not sure I follow that logic. Nothing about justinhj's statement implied "we should do this regardless of what anyone else thinks". They just stated something which is a priority to them. They're taking part in a deliberative democracy by engaging in a public discussion of their priorities. Am I misunderstanding something? Are you maybe responding to something another comment insinuated?

[lilsoso]

Why am I being voted down for pointing out, validly, that many people disagree? Why the rush to censor?

[cdrini]

Downvoting isn't really a mechanism to censor, flagging is. The intent of downvoting is usually just disagreement. My guess would be you're being downvoted for a few reasons:

- A few of the people you mentioned are somewhat polarising, so folks who dislike them, might downvote

- in a measure of a president's efficacy, mentioning people who think a president is ineffective isn't as convincing as say mentioning actions of the president that were ineffective. You will, for any president, be able to find a large number of people who will passionately argue for/against that president's effectiveness.

- Your sources are very long videos, which discourage verifying if folks want to see what they said about him. Eg "Here's why he's in effective: [3 hours of podcasts]"

- One of your sources is a podcast which features Trump himself, which greatly brings into doubt the objectivism of the video

- the Zuckerberg short is very speculative, further weakening this collection of sources

[lilsoso]

Here's a number of articles outlining the A16z support for Trump:

- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/17/co-f...

- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-16/andreesse...

- https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/16/andreessen-horowitz-co-fou...

Here's a broader article on Silicon Valley support for Trump (potentially paywalled):

- https://www.ft.com/content/e2ffd807-1c18-436c-9f70-2fa7181ac...

- The FT article includes the following names: Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Shervin Pishevar, Keith Rabois, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, Doug Leone, Shaun Maguire, Joe Lonsdale, Jacob Helberg

Please keep in mind that not too long ago vocal support for Trump could get you fired (and still might). Fighting against censorship is important.

[justinhj]

We would disagree on who is promising the deliberative democracy and who is the demagog I expect. However, expressing my opinion does not reduce the space for others to express theirs. In fact downvoting opinions is a form of exclusion.

[justinhj]

I gave my opinion. The 1) and 2) I don’t speak for or care to be told to fall in line for.