Shame on Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/2016/10/17/shame-on-y-combinator <comment><USER2> We've turned off user flags again for this story because the rule of HN moderation is to moderate threads less when they're critical of YC or YC- funded startups. Please be respectful of your fellow community members in the discussion—such divisive issues are threatening and our first duty is to protect the community.

</comment><comment><USER3> Marcos understanding of this situation is extremely telling for a fundamental problem with many americans relationship with politics. Most only get involved around election. After that their political interest is non existing.

It's easy to get lured into the idea that politics is a simple choice between the moral good and the moral bad, that the choice is simple and that there is a one to one relationship between what you vote for and what you get.

In reality however it's much more complicated. For all the crazy things Trump says, for all is egoism he has some very important points which needs to be addressed and discussed and he represents a group of people who haven't been represented for the last 40 years. A group who are themselves excluded from society. A group who experience their own form of discrimination by the likes of Marcos, me and everyone else who are benefitting from the progress of technology, globalization, taxation rules and so on.

Marcos is all about form. Trumps form is admittedly not pretty but there are some important issues and for Theil a different political goal than Trump which isn't represented by Hillary. If you can't understand that then you make the mistakes of Marco et all. You confuse rhetorics with whats at stake.

If you don't want dissent, fine just admit it. That way at least you are being honest. Don't wrap your lack of political understanding into some claim of decency.

Racism is not just racism, sexism is not just sexism. These are complicated matters by the very nature of them being about human relationships.

So don't be the very thing your object to.

And no I don't want to defend Trump or Theil but rather the fundamental principle that no matter what in a democracy everyone have the right to say and mean what they want without having to fear the repercussions. Life is complicated and it happens all the time not just around election. There are many good reasons to be against Trump or Peter Theils endorsement of him, Marcos reasons just arent any of them. They are purely superficial understanding of what's really at stake here.

<comment><USER4> That is in fact _not_ a fundamental principle of democracy. There is no work of political philosophy anywhere that suggests we should be able to say whatever we'd like "without fear of repercussions". What is a principle of liberal philosophy, though, is that we should be tolerant of the beliefs of others (in the sense of not intervening to suppress them), including intolerant beliefs, _until those intolerant beliefs threaten society_.

You may not believe Trump is a real thread to society. I disagree. So far, so good. The issue here is: Sam Altman and Paul Graham disagree too. Both of them compare Trump to a dictator. Paul Graham compared him to Stalin. Both Altman and Graham believe, like I do, that Trump is an existential threat to our democracy.

Sam Altman cannot coherently believe this while supporting Peter Thiel, who is not just a Trump supporter, but an important part of the Trump campaign. Even most leaders of the Republican party refused to get on stage at the RNC to support Trump. Thiel did. When he did, he used his time to claim that Donald Trump was the only honest candidate in the race. He bundled millions of dollars of donations for Trump. And, just last week, after Trump pivoted his campaign as a crusade against the legitimacy of our elections and of the black vote, Thiel donated $1.25MM more.

Nobody denies Sam Altman's right to support Peter Thiel, or, for that matter, Thiel's right to support Trump. But we are all very much entitled to criticize what Altman is doing, and we would be doing Altman no favors by withholding that criticism.

<comment><USER5> I don't know if you followed what happened to the Atheist community in the US, but its downfall was essentially the kind of witch hunt you're trying to incite. The level of virtue signaling demanded gradually increases until no one is left in the community. This invariably happens because the question you're asking ("does intolerant belief X threaten society?") has no absolute answer, so there is always a higher level of purity to declare a community standard.

When I was younger I used to watch The Daily Show and laugh at how dumb the conservatives where -- they were trying to suppress rock and roll for fear of the devil's influence, etc. As I grew older I came to realize it wasn't conservatives generally who were the awful/dumb ones, it was a particular kind of person in a context where they felt they could dictate to others what was ethically right. Moral fashion police if you will.

I've lately seen more and more Moral Fashion Police on the democratic side of the isle, and I find it considerably more awful (it's closer to home). You might even say that I view these people as intolerant to the point that they threaten society.

However I wouldn't in a million years fire someone or yell at them, hate them, etc for being fashion police, even though I think they threaten society. Experience is the best teacher, and sometimes a person needs to make mistakes / destroy something beautiful in order to find the next level of understanding. Maybe for you that means destroying YC (though I hope you fail), and maybe for Trump voters that means (in a small way) destroying the US Government. I just wish you both wouldn't.

<comment><USER4> If you do not believe that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy, then, while I implore you to reconsider, I am content to agree to disagree.

But you might take that disagreement up first with Paul Graham and Sam Altman. They do not agree with you. They _aggressively_ don't agree with you. They compare Donald Trump with a fascist dictator. I think they're right about Trump, and therefore that they're very wrong about continuing to endorse Thiel.

I would be doing Sam Altman no favors to pretend otherwise.

<comment><USER6> >They compare Donald Trump with a fascist dictator.

A bit childish, considering the slot the candidate is running for is not in a dictatorship. If you think Trump could convert the US to a dictatorship, I would like to see the evidence supporting this.

<comment><USER7> No one has the influence to convert the US to anything overnight. However, I do think that normalizing the language of authoritarianism can have long-term negative effects on our democratic process.

<comment><USER3> The same thing can be said about the normalization of globalization and technological progress which allowed the politicians and the companies who pay for their campaigns to trade jobs for cheap flat screens.

Ignoring one just because the other is more obvious isn't any better in my book.

<comment><USER7> No need to assume that I'm ignoring anything. I'm willing to accept globalization and technological progress despite their many imperfections because they have real, tangible benefits to humanity. On the other hand, the only person that stands to gain from authoritarianism is its leader.

<comment><USER3> Yeah so you are willing to accept the collateral damage of those who don't stand to benefit and whose lives are being destroyed from that. This is just another version of the same. Not better, not worse, just different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Shame on Marco. I can't stand Trump, but I also can't stand this ganging up on Thiel. I guess the fact that he's a billionaire means he can be bullied, but this political bullying has a chilling effect that leads to the lackluster choices we get for president every four years.

Thiel sees Hillary as a bigger threat to his interests than Trump. To prefer an outcome does not imply you favor all aspects of that outcome. As arrogant and simple-minded as Trump comes across, he didn't _stay_ wealthy without delegating his authority, and there would be violence to no-end if he appointed racists and sexists to high-level positions. That egomaniac ultimately seeks admiration, and the threat of "deporting illegals" was most- likely (you never know and that's why I'm not voting for the guy) a strategy to get the nomination.

Instead of Thiel, we should be admonishing our media, which couldn't have hand-picked two more controversial figures and allowed themselves to be manipulated at every step. We should be admonishing Hillary and Trump supporters who turn a blind eye to their unethical tactics and ends justify the means mindset. The ends (aka political payback) usually just result in more corruption and more things to fix with government. We need to stop this cycle. We can start buy turning off the TV, and considering a third party.

<comment><USER9> Bullying implies a power relationship where Thiel is weak, and strong people are ganging up on him. But Thiel is a powerful man.

This is just debate. Huge, internet-clogging amounts of debate.

<comment><USER10> People are calling for the severing of working relationships based on the guy's politics, which is perhaps not a textbook definition of bullying but more than just debate.

Sadly the concept of civil debate seems to have been lost somewhere along the way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thanks, Marco, for drawing my attention to Sam Altman's great blog post. More people should take Sam's attitude:

 _The way we got into a situation with Trump as a major party nominee in the first place was by not talking to people who are very different than we are. The polarization of the country into two parallel political realities is not good for any of us. We should talk to each other more, not less.

We should all feel a duty to try to understand the roughly half of the country that thinks we are severely misguided. I don't understand how 43% of the country supports Trump. But I'd like to find out, because we have to include everyone in our path forward. If our best ideas are to stop talking to or fire anyone who disagrees with us, we'll be facing this whole situation again in 2020._

<comment><USER12> This comment deserves more attention.

<comment><USER13> Yes, because how else are we going to hear the views of white billionaires?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Posts like this play _directly_ into Trump's hands. The entire Trump ideology is based on a belief that "real Americans" are being oppressed by a sinister "global elite". Demanding that Trump supporters be fired tells everyone that the "elites" are a) scared of Trump, b) can't win through arguments and have to resort to intimidation, and c) are a powerful, dangerous group which is hostile to average people, who need someone to protect them from this sinister force. Which is all, of course, exactly what Donald Trump wants them to believe.

Daily newspapers have endorsed Clinton by a margin of 147 to 2. It should be obvious, over a year after the Trump campaign started, that anyone voting for Trump isn't going to be dissuaded by yet another article calling him racist. Indeed, I think many Trump supporters back him _because_ of all the articles calling him racist. "They" must be scared of Trump (the logic goes), or else "they" wouldn't spend so much effort attacking him, so Trump must be the only "truly independent" candidate who will "fight the system".

If you don't believe me, look at eg. this comment on /r/The_Donald, which was voted up to #1 on a recent Peter Thiel article:

"True story. I once hung out with a group of lesbians (most my friends are male), and when they found out I didn't agree with them politically, they told me they were taking away my dyke card. Thankfully there are a LOT of gays who give no fucks about the 'lgbtqjseflelkf community', and just live their lives like anyone else. This article is nothing more than typical democrat tactics. 'YOU'RE NOT A REAL <insert minority> UNLESS YOU DO WHAT WE SAY.' REMEMBER IF TRUMP WEREN'T A REAL THREAT, THEY WOULDN'T BE THIS DESPERATE." (emphasis in original)

The same tactics have been used against Trump over and over and over, for more than a year now, and his support is still pretty much where it was during the summer. Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over and over, and expecting different results.

<comment><USER15> I'm _deeply_ uncomfortable with the narrative where support for Trump is a basis for excluding a person from discussion and employment. He's a major party candidate, supported (if sometimes disliked) by roughly half the population. That's not a number of people you can fire or silence!

The usual argument runs that this time is unique, that Trump has embraced racism and violence and his major-party status should not bury that. That he is effectively (sometimes "literally") a facist, and should be treated as such. I think it's an inadequate, alarming response.

Just about half of voters will back Trump. At that scale, silencing and marginalizing them is _impossible_ , so whether it's _moral_ doesn't really matter. Shunning influences people when it cuts them off from their social circles, but most of the people embracing shunning admit they know 0-1 Trump supporters. It's not going to marginalize anyone, just deepen a divide between the groups.

Even if Trump were quite literally Mussolini 2.0, firing and shunning his supporters wouldn't end his candidacy. In fact, refusing to engage with facists has historically pushed them further, letting them build their beliefs unopposed.

I respected Altman's explanation. It doesn't matter that Trump is different, or that Thiel donated an exceptional amount (particularly since it was in line with his wealth). Firing people for simple support or donations makes this problem _worse_ , so no amount of importance is a justification.

<comment><USER4> Nobody is suggesting excluding Trump supporters from employment.

<comment><USER16> It seems like most people want YC to cut Thiel off, which would be very similar to that. David Heinemeier Hansson and Ellen Pao have advocated for virtually that exact scenario.

<comment><USER4> Thiel doesn't even get equity in YC. Thiel's participation in YC is almost literally just a marketing tactic --- it's a co-endorsement. We're telling Altman: rethink the endorsement.

<comment><USER16> And once that happens, that legitimizes DHH firing Basecamp employees who vote for Trump. I understand that Thiel's involvement with YC is not "employment," but the point is that 1) yes, people _are_ suggesting excluding Trump supporters from employment and 2) high visibility people doing so would have a massive ripple effect on everybody else. It's just another thing that goes from "that's insane and you can't do that" to "these other companies have done it, so it's no big deal."

<comment><USER17> > _that legitimizes DHH firing Basecamp employees who vote for Trump_

Except that democratic voting systems are set up to make to make it impossible to prove who you voted for.

<comment><USER16> Yes, of course. I should have said "support" instead of "vote for."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am not sure why endorsement of a political candidate is sometimes equated with 100% parity on every single belief of that particular candidate.

It is entirely possibly that some people support Trump _because_ of his crass and divisive rhetoric, and it's also entirely possible that some people support Trump because of his stance on trade. Is it really anyone's place to demand that another voter change the list of priorities that determine their choice of candidate? Does that not fundamentally alter the intended functioning of the way voting in a democracy ought to work?

I am all for constructive debate on why the policies and character of one candidate makes them more suitable for holding a particular government post, but to suggest that one ought to resort to intimidation, ostracism, marginalizing and other such methods because of an individual's personal choice to prioritize a candidate's agreeable stance on one issue, over a disagreeable stance of another, seems very dangerous to me.

During his campaign, President Obama famously claimed that he felt marriage was a union that ought to be between a man and a woman. Most would consider this to be a highly regressive view, yet voted for him because he was their preferred choice on a whole lot of issues. Campaign officials like David Axelrod later revealed that he took this position publicly for political expediency. Regardless of whether this is true, if one were to suggest marginalizing Obama voters in the way that is being suggested here, I am confident that there would be very little semblance of a community left.

<comment><USER19> Peter Thiel is doing just fine. If Y Combinator walked away from him, he would not be hurt or marginalized or ostracized in the least. This is not about persecuting people who vote for Trump.

But to support Trump with an _enormous_ sum of money _after_ Trump has revealed himself to be willing to resort to borderline anti-Semitic slurs, to welcome the support of the white supremacy movement, to call for locking up his political opponent, to threaten the free press, to call for an end to Bill of Rights protections for accused criminals, to pre-emptively claim that the election is rigged, that voting fraud is rampant and to encourage his supporters to intimidate voters, to promise to ban an entire religion, and to brag about sexual assault in professional situations is to make a statement that these are the things Thiel is okay with advocating. Whatever other positions Trump might have that Thiel supports, these things are part of the package. Trump is not just a normal candidate. He's a true threat to our democracy.

<comment><USER20> " is to make a statement that these are the things Thiel is okay with advocating."

Clinton supporters are never held to this standard.

No one calls on Clinton supporters to publicly disavow her statement about the "basket of deplorables". Clinton also shipped classified information to her basement server and destroyed thousands of records when under subpoena. No one claims that Clinton supporters are supporting this behavior. Indeed, it seems just fine for Clinton voters to support her despite her activities which were, at best, "extremely reckless." Clinton supporters can say that, despite her flaws, they will vote for her.

But for some reason, any Trump voter automatically supports every bad thing he ever did.

<comment><USER21> Because those things aren't even close to being on the same level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Shame on you for blaming Y Combinator. If it was 1.25 million for Clinton you would probably praise Y Combinator, no? This feels more like a clash between your personal political preferences and Mr Thiels's. You are just blaming Y Combinator to inflate this story, trying to get more people on the Clinton side. Shame on you!

<comment><USER23> Why do people keep making this false equivalence between the two options? One candidate has repeatedly taken racist and sexist stances, as well as demeaned those who are handicapped (and honestly, the list goes on and on). If people don't take a stand against this type of thing, it is a tacit acceptance.

<comment><USER24> Many very smart, educated, and informed people I know believe that Hillary has effectively monetized public service/political influence and is the most corrupt major party nominee to run for the Presidency in modern history. If people don't take a stand against that type of thing, isn't that tacit acceptance as well? Pick your poison, so to speak. Hillary's supporters will argue that she's not corrupt and has been investigated and cleared of all charges, just as Trump's supporters will argue that he has a 40 year history of helping women and minorities shatter glass ceilings in the construction industry, and therefore is likely not a racist or a misogynist, rather just an ''equal opportunity asshole''. I think this election cycle is much more about voting against the candidate you hate, than for the candidate you love, which should make election day all the more exciting since the normal polling and turnout models could be totally off the mark.

<comment><USER25> In 30 years of public life, there hasn't been a single shred of evidence to back up that claim. These people you know are sadly misinformed.

<comment><USER26> "hasn't been a single shred."

[http://www.g-a-i.org/u/2016/08/Report- Skolkvovo-08012016.pdf](http://www.g-a-i.org/u/2016/08/Report- Skolkvovo-08012016.pdf)

<comment><USER27> Worth pointing out that GAI was co-founded by a STEPHEN K. BANNON which, coincidentally, is the same STEPHEN K. BANNON that runs Breitbart and is currently the campaign chairman for DONALD J. TRUMP.

Possibly not the most unbiased of sources, I think.

<comment><USER26> Do you have an actual comment on the content of the report, or just low level FUD about its source?

This comment is actually pretty hilarious given the fact that Teneo Holdings, mentioned in the report, was founded by ex Bill Clinton staffers, and had Bill Clinton and Tony Blair as 2 of it's original 3 advisors. Huma Abedin is presently on the Teneo payroll.

If those sorts of ties between people are problematic to you, then you must ABSOLUTELY HATE the Clintons, because the same type of arrangement is how literally everyone close to them got there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> To me, these attitudes (and their general acceptance + support) are just as worrying as Donald's own attitudes and supporters.

One of the strangest things about human nature--at least that I've seen--is that when we vehemently resist something we detest we often produce its mirror image.

It's honestly __extremely frightening __to think that making a political donation to a major-party candidate you support could cost you your livelihood in this country. Those are not the principles America was founded on. (It 's not even like McCarthyism anymore where they were persecuting a small minority party. We want to blacklist people for being __Republican__? Really?)

This is exactly how Democracy becomes eroded and one party systems emerge. And the fact that more people don't see that is quite chilling.

What's that old American saying? Something like: "I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." That's the America I grew up in. What happened to it?

<comment><USER29> We've been headed toward one party statehood for awhile. The American project has failed.

"Democratic politicians are the ruling class's prime legitimate representatives and that because Republican politicians are supported by only a fourth of their voters while the rest vote for them reluctantly, most are aspirants for a junior role in the ruling class. In short, the ruling class has a party, the Democrats. But some two-thirds of Americans — a few Democratic voters, most Republican voters, and all independents — lack a vehicle in electoral politics."

[http://spectator.org/39326_americas-ruling-class-and- perils-...](http://spectator.org/39326_americas-ruling-class-and-perils- revolution/)

<comment><USER30> I was really hoping that Gödel was wrong when he said that he found a logical loophole in the constitution that would allow for a dictatorship. But I believe we are figuring out what that loophole was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Living through communism in an eastern european country and getting the real freedom to vote and support who we want changed everything .

And this is why I simply cannot understand this. Educated people from countries which I associate with a strong democracy are asking, no, demanding political discrimination. This is illegal in any civilized country and for obvious reasons. And they do it in the name of progress too!

I must control my impulse of getting angry and calling names, but the fact is you are ignorant spoiled children who take your freedom for granted and would trade it for simple feelings of holier than though.

</comment><comment><USER32> I am 100% in favor of Sam Altman's decision for the following reasons: 1. Trump is offensive, racist, sexist and a terrible human being all around. I am Mexican, and I hate his guts and everything about him. However, I believe in what Voltaire once smartly said "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". I do not agree at all with Peter Thiel's decision to support Trump in the RNC or with money, but I defend his right to express himself. 2. Sam Altman and Paul Graham have done a lot to defeat Trump and elect Hillary as president. One of their part time partners supports Trump, that is not indicative of YC's political view. 3. Peter Thiel is a business man, and investor therefore that is what I focus on, his book which is fantastic and his work on facebook, can't judge him unfairly on everything, just because he supports Trump. He has a brilliant business mind and that is why he is a part time partner at YC and that is in the arena he should be judged. I am strongly in favor of free speech. Peter should be scrutinized and debated, not fired. Sam Altman does not deserve any nonsense because of this.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is a disgrace to punish someone just because they have different view. Kudos to Y Cominator to not cave in. Peter Thiel is free to support and donate to whoever candidate he feels strong about. If you don't like it, donate to the other candidate. Dragging it into business and people life is so Mccarthyism.

<comment><USER34> Should all views be accepted as equally valid?

Isn't the right to hold your own judgement the heart of freedom? And what is that judgement if it cannot be expressed? If it cannot have consequences?

Sure, we must protect the expression and dissemination of thoughts and views as key to democracy but when it comes to implementation of those expressions and thoughts we also have a duty under democracy to vigorously push our own judgements.

<comment><USER33> > Should all views be accepted as equally valid?

Whether a view is valid or not is irrelevant. Who's the judge for validity anyway? And you don't have to accept certain views you don't like. The problem is when you want to suppress views you don't like, to the extent of oppression.

<comment><USER34> >Who's the judge for validity anyway?

The individual and, in a democracy, individuals in aggregate, the majority with specific exceptions, of course, that protect a person's Right of expression.

To remove from people the right to judge for themselves is the ultimate assault on freedom and liberty.

>when you want to suppress views you don't like, to the extent of oppression.

There are a lot of slippery words in that sentence. What is suppression? Is speaking out against a view vigorously, suppression? Is working to prevent a view from becoming policy suppression? Is judging a person's character for holding a certain view suppression? Is acting against the implementation of one's views and agenda if one does not agree with it suppression? Is judging an individual or a group by the company they keep suppression? No. To all of the above, no.

Not all views have equal merit and deserve equal treatment.

Working against an odious agenda and to counter undesirable views (within the law) is not oppression, it is an obligation and a duty in a democratic society.

<comment><USER33> > To remove from people the right to judge for themselves is the ultimate > assault on freedom and liberty.

I think we are in agreement here.

> Should all views be accepted as equally valid?

> Not all views have equal merit and deserve equal treatment.

These are just a pretext to suppress views that are deemed invalid, odious, and undesirable. And conveniently any "invalid" view happens to be the ones you don't like.

The hallmark of a democratic society is to ensure opposing views can be spoken without fear of repercussion.

However, the right to express yourself doesn't mean the right to harass and bully the people expressing the opposing views.

Oppression happens when you bully people just because their view. Oppression happens when you sabotage their work/job/career/business just because their view. Oppression happens when you harass their friends/family/relationship just because their view.

If you want to advocate your view and policy, state exactly how great they are and what benefits they bring. If you want to express how terrible the opposing view, state exactly how bad they are. Don't bully the people. Express your opposition to their VIEW, not the individual.

<comment><USER34> >Oppression happens when you sabotage their work/job/career/business just because their view.

I would agree with you except for one thing: money is political power under our current system. If someone is allowed to use their market power to influence our democracy, it is perfectly valid to use market power to oppose that influence. It is a double edged sword.

<comment><USER33> That's why we have election rules attempting to restrict money influence in the system for BOTH sides, or at least to make it a level playing field.

Targeting people's personal money just because their view is an oppression. It is an easy slippery slope to go down. Income/money/work enable them to express their view. What's next? Their home certainly enable them to express their view. How about their food?

If you want to take money out of politics, work on campaign finance reform. And enforce existing laws to stamp out any violation.

<comment><USER34> Thiel is donating millions to influence an election. I don't know where the slippery slope is but we're nowhere near the edge.

If Thiel has used his market power to express his view, then so can the rest of the market actors can use the same power to express theirs. Individuals should be able to use all available information to decide to spend their limited resources supporting. Thiel has decided to send a very strong signal to the market. People and organizations that decide to associate with Thiel also provide information to the market.

Should market actors completely ignore this specific class of information when making decisions? Knowing that resources that flow in Thiel's direction will be used to work against my preferred government policies, policies that may very well have a negative impact on my wellbeing, should I allow my resources to flow that direction anyway? It seems foolish and arbitrary to ignore that segment of reality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Shame on you, Marco Arment, for calling for someone's head because you don't like their political position. Whatever happened to the land of "I disapprove of what you say but I'll defend to death your right to say it" or "Give me freedom or give me death"? Or it is, as it turns out for you, that it's the land of the free only for people who agree with you?

I'm not a Trump supporter, but I applaud YC's decision not to sever ties with someone because of their personal opinion. And Marco Arment should feel ashamed for trying to oust people with different political opinion than his and undermine the cherished principle of freedom of speech.

</comment><comment><USER36> Why do people need to drag their personal opinions into business matters?

Demanding someone gets fire/removed just because they have a different political opinion than you is ridiculous.

<comment><USER37> I am not sure if it is ridiculous. It depends. It's about a line that everyone has to draw and to set. And this also what Marco is trying to mention in his post I guess.

Let's take a more extreme example from history, just for pointing out that there is a line: I hope we could agree that supporting the NSDAP is as far over such a line as imaginable.

Not comparing anyone in this context with the NSDAP, just pointing out that there is such a line, and hiding behind "political free opinion" doesn't help to avoid hard decisions.

<comment><USER38> It's good that you aren't comparing this current context with our modern view on the NSDAP.

Mainly because pressuring others into supporting a certain candidate through non-political means really is ridiculous and a deeply concerning attitude in democratic societies.

<comment><USER37> Wait a second, maybe I can't follow you here. Are you saying that there should be no consequences for anyone no matter who someone is political supporting, because it is in political context?

If so, two questions: \- What if someone is supporting someone in none political context (which is hard, cause kind of nearly everything could be defined as such), does then someone have to stand for her/his public behaviour and face disagreement or consequences? \- What if someone supports politically the KKK, the IS or any other organisation or party, that you might not agree with?

How about a much more important thing in our constitution: Free speech. Does free speech mean I can say and publicly announce anything, without having to face consequences?

<comment><USER38> > Are you saying that there should be no consequences for anyone no matter who > someone is political supporting, because it is in political context?

Not at all. I was inplying that the consequences should be political as well.

If your children aren't your opinion, try to engage in valuable conversation instead of cutting their allowance. If your neighbor puts up a sign for a candidate you don't like, put up your own sign and don't try to pressure his employer into making him leave.

Democratic societies actively require political variation. Using your physical or economic strength or maybe your status to make people do or state things they don't like is blatantly uncivil.

I'm not an expert on US constitutional law & procedure so you might need to make your own research on their legal specifics in this certain case, but in most western setups I'd bet it's not a very good idea to believe in a legal right which might allow you to publicly announce "anything". But I don't see its relation to our topic here, I think it's probably not essential.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> There are some brilliant people working in this industry whose politics I abhor. That doesn't mean that we can't, don't, or won't work well together, or even that we have to leave politics at the door. I've had some great conversations with people who I strongly disagree with politically -- frustrating, yes, but still highly interesting and worthwhile for mutual understanding.

This trend of naming, shaming, and excluding political opponents has got to end. We've been here before (even as recently as the GWB / War on Terror era), and it is absolutely toxic for an open and democratic society.

<comment><USER19> I agree with you in general, but Trump is uniquely toxic. Every day he says more and more hateful and disturbing things, and threatens our open and democratic society with his constant railing against the rigged election and encouragement to supporters to go intimidate voters in typically-Democratic districts. This is not just a political difference. Trump is truly dangerous.

<comment> obj-g So, we'll leave it up to you to decide then? When someone is uniquely toxic or not?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm not a Trump supporter, but all the YC shaming is terrible. You're advocating for dictatorship where only one political view matters.

Wikipedia: "A dictatorship is a type of authoritarianism, in which politicians regulate nearly every aspect of the public and private behavior of citizens."

<comment><USER41> so much fear of reprisal that you have to qualify with "I'm not a Trump supporter". political discourse here is as bad or worse than it is anywhere.

<comment><USER42> >so much fear of reprisal

That's a bit dramatic. It wasn't fear of reprisal, it was disclosure of bias.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> There's an interesting dichotomy when people talk about this election. The same folks who accuse Trump of being divisive, then demand folks break ties with all Trump supporters.

I detest Trump, but I understand a certain aspect of his followers. (I know several intelligent Trump followers. They do exist.) Their core premise is, "We want to push Reset on the crony capitalism in Washington, and if it takes a terminally flawed candidate to destroy the establishment, so be it." In this light, things like "He's never done the job before", "He's a Pervert", "He lies a bunch" don't hurt him. And when Republican leadership abandons him, it strengthens his cause. (Yes, there's racism too, but let's leave that to the side for now) Yes, Trump is reprehensible, but you can appreciate that the disaffected are rallying behind him with "Let's not have 4 more years of the rich bailing themselves out and bringing cheap competition in for our jobs."

YC can join the Facebook drama queens who unfriend people with opposing political views, but that's childish. Better to engage the opposition, and allow people to support whatever politicians they want out in the open.

</comment><comment><USER44> I disagree with the author of this article. If anything, this article just shows how powerful the media is and how it can influence people to have such extreme thoughts about things which they actually know very little about.

Trump is not guilty of sexual harassment - That is hearsay; media propaganda. Yes, he said nasty things, but it doesn't mean anything about his ability to do a good job as a president.

I think he is probably a rotten person, but I think everyone in politics is just as rotten anyway. To pretend that Hillary Clinton is a saint is wrong - Personally, I think that she is every bit as rotten as Trump - But she is really good at hiding/suppressing it.

Most Trump supporters don't want to vote for him because they think he is a nice person (and I'm sure that Thiel doesn't either) - They just think that he is capable of doing a great job as a president and they think that this is more important than his personality.

</comment><comment><USER45> Hi Marco.

I disagree with you for a couple reasons.

(1) Seek to understand, _then_ seek to be understood. If we want to eliminate misguided beliefs, convince anyone who thinks sexual assault and racism is okay, etc., you need to first understand them, and have them feel as though they are understood. It's a basic rule of effective communication. No one will listen to your criticisms of their arguments if they are not convinced that you have understood what they are saying and show empathy towards their position. So, a dialogue wherein all parties work together to develop shared understandings will be far more effective than the demonisation of a section of society.

(2) Supporting Trump doesn't necessarily mean Peter supports Trump's more bigoted and/or inappropriate views. This is Peter Thiel we're talking about. Peter gets excited by thinking differently to other people. If thinking differently were a sex act, it would be Peter's fetish. Peter would support a candidate only if he believes it's what the country needs to help bring back a time of growth and optimism that he thinks has been lost long ago (see: Zero to One). Now, remember, just because Peter believes something, doesn't mean that it's right (see: Clarium Capital).

So, it is my view that Sam is right in supporting the sharing of vastly different ideas, views and understandings. Thiel hasn't specifically supported any of Trump's shameful views, as you aptly describe them, so his only 'crime' is to believe that a protectionist moron (he'll perceive him differently) can do anything positive for the country - a belief that might be mistaken, but is by no means a crime or something to cause shame.

Stop demonising Trump supporters. You'll never convince idiots of anything by addressing them as such.

</comment><comment><USER46> Non American here. Inability to even comprehend why calls to punish one person because it supports option that I don't like (that's allegedly full of ism-s) equates to me being as narrow minded as the side I am attacking... is very dangerous. Marco is not doing any favor to his favorite this way. Narrow mindedness, no matter how well packaged, stays narrow mindedness. Dragging YC in this is again just a reflection of inability to see how this looks on the outside.

As we say in this part of the world "just don't defend me any more please".

<comment><USER47> You make excellent points. Marco is not alone in this. There is a subculture in the US that is so full of their own self righteousness, they are unable to take a fair look at themselves. No matter where we sit on the political spectrum, we as a larger culture need to take this more seriously. Thank you for offering your perspective as an outsider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Peter Thiel's support for Trump seems instrumental and not an end-in- itself[1]. I disagree with it and think it's stupid. But if he was my business partner and told me that he had good reasons to think that the long-term utility of a Trump president outweighs the unpleasantness and negative side- effects then I would argue with him and try to talk him out of it. Thinking about it in this way, shunning him seems to be an extreme thing to do.

[1]: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/peter-thiel-trump- ha...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/peter-thiel-trump-has-taught- us-this-years-most-important-political- lesson/2016/09/06/84df8182-738c-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html?utm_term=.976b8d6074fc)

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm no Trumpist and no fan of Thiel, but I believe anyone can place their vote where-ever they want.

I may not agree with him but I would fight to the end for his right to vote for Trump if he wants.

<comment><USER50> To be fair, OP doesn't take issue with who Thiel is voting for.

<comment><USER51> Did we read the same post?

<comment><USER50> >Thiel, a non-employee (a "part-time partner"), is directly supporting Donald Trump at a massive scale — over a million dollars! — after we've learned even more of Trump's horrendous statements, positions, and past actions than we could've ever imagined.

I'm not sure but there is no mention of voting anywhere in the article.

<comment><USER52> Fine, swap "vote" for "support". Allowing people to vote for candidates but not support them is just mincing words.

<comment><USER53> It's really not. You don't "vote" for someone so hard you personally become an important part of the campaign.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Conservatives have a right to their own set of values, like anti-abortion, faith-based education issues, smaller government, reduced taxes, etc., and they have a right to back whatever candidate aligns with their values. I'm a liberal but it is amazing to me to read these types of articles, from other liberals with zero tolerance for the alternative viewpoint. There should not even be a decision to be made here. It takes all kinds of people or else it would not be America. It is not acceptable to persecute people based on their political choices.

<comment><USER9> Political debate in the US has traditionally taken place in a framework of shared values. Some of these are: you accept electoral defeat, you nominate people with a basic minimum of human decency, and overt bigotry is not acceptable.

Within that framework, people have sharp disagreements over issues, some of them life-or-death (like abortion). But the framework is something that was sacrosanct, until this election.

The problem many people, including conservatives, have with Trump is that he breaks basic norms around how our democracy should work, and represents a threat to it. That's why Thiel's vocal support for his candidacy is so troubling. It's not just a case of someone whose politics I disagree with, it's someone financing the destruction of the whole apparatus those politics take place within.

<comment><USER55> > and overt bigotry is not acceptable.

I'm scared to ask- is this really true?

<comment><USER56> I'd personally like to think we've gotten better as a society over the years.

<comment><USER55> Clumsy on my part- I was asking historically.

<comment><USER56> Pardoned!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> The number of indirections here is incredible and I'm amazed nobody has pointed it out yet. In essence the post says: Shame on YC because

\- a non-employee / part time partner of YC has

\- supported a presidential candidate who

\- has, a decade ago, said things that (besides reflecting badly on his character)

\- if realized in action

\- would constitute sexual harassment

Now if it was practice at YC to sexually harass people I'd say yea, shame on YC. But this is ridiculous. If we were to accept indirect arguments like in the post then it would be equally valid to say:

\- Shame on the HN community because it

\- Supports a site operated by YC which

\- ...

</comment><comment><USER58> Are we going to talk about the election on Hacker News now? Seems most submissions deemed political have been blackholed, correct? And I think that's fine. But if we're opening the gates, lets open them wide and not just post the same garbage that can be read anywhere else.

For example, let's talk about something ignored by most of the mainstream like this excellent investigative report that came out yesterday. It concerns those Chicago riots where Sanders supporters supposedly committed violent acts and shut down the Trump speech there. Well turns out that this and many other violent acts, riots, and even possibly acts of terrorism (which is defined as violence in the furtherance of political aims, which this was), were coordinated, organized and paid for by the Clinton campaign itself, all nicely documented with proof in federal disclosure forms showing that the violent rioters were paid Clinton operatives.

[http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/17/new_okeefe...](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/17/new_okeefe_video_clinton_campaign_dnc_coordinated_with_organizations_to_beat_up_trump_supporters.html)

I voted for Sanders in the primary. I'm voting for Stein in a few weeks. I don't really appreciate politicians hiring people to commit acts of political terrorism and blaming it on Sanders supporters like myself.

So let's talk about this since we are going to talk about politics on HN now.

<comment><USER59> Excellent point, but to discuss politics on HN is a waste of time as there isn't an easy way to know who you are talking to - the same type of operatives you refer too are also crawling HN and pretty much every other popular social media space. Marco is either completely oblivious to the phenomena (and has bought into their narrative hook, line and sinker) or perhaps he himself is also artificially incentivized.

The same could be assumed about Sam Altman who yesterday wrote an equally damning article (damning to himself IMO).

I am not accusing anybody, and certainly would not and am not jumping to a conclusion based on a single article - and would welcome Marco and Sam's rebuttal - but am instead looking at the larger picture here... there are reports[1] of popular YouTubers being offered $$$ to endorse Hilary and so it's not too much of a stretch to assume they would also pay prominent people in tech too (and not to mention Hollywood as well of course).

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIjpp270dI0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIjpp270dI0)

<comment><USER60> It seems you just accused sama of taking payment from Clinton's campaign for his blog post yesterday. I know you said you are not, but you did.

This is why politics should be banned from HN until the election is over.

<comment><USER59> Being aware of a certain possibility, and pointing out this possibility for others to see, is not an accusation - particularly because I said and as you acknowledged it was not intended as accusation nor did I jump to that conclusion personally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> from: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/08/the-slate-star-codex- po...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/08/the-slate-star-codex-political- spectrum-quiz/)

2\. The anchor of a major news network donates lots of money to organizations fighting against gay marriage, and in his spare time he writes editorials arguing that homosexuals are weakening the moral fabric of the country. The news network decides they disagree with this kind of behavior and fire the anchor.

a) This is acceptable; the news network is acting within their rights and according to their principles

b) This is outrageous; people should be judged on the quality of their work and not their political beliefs

12\. The principal of a private school is a member of Planned Parenthood and, off-duty, speaks out about contraception and the morning after pill. The board of the private school decides this is inappropriate given the school's commitment to abstinence and moral education and asks the principal to stop these speaking engagements or step down from his position.

a) The school board is acting within its rights; they can insist on a principal who shares their values

b) The school board should back off; it's none of their business what he does in his free time

If you answer these questions differently, you need to try to apply your so- called principles consistently. This article is bullshit for the same reason the Brendan Eich affair was bullshit--if the situation were reversed, the same people calling for Brendan Eich's head would have been ardently defending someone who had been fired for donating to marijuana legalization or something. As long as he's not discriminating or smoking weed in the workplace, etc., YOU SHOULD NOT PERSECUTE SOMEONE FOR HIS BELIEFS or how they affect his political contributions.

<comment><USER62> Sigh. People keep bringing up Brendan Eich. What happened there is very simple: a good chunk of Mozilla PR and marketing is about freedom. Software and online freedom, yes, but the word "freedom" is used a fair bit. Eich monetarily supported a cause that aimed to take away freedom for a certain class of people. This is incongruent for the face of an organization that has freedom one of its core messages.

Mozilla is fairly unique in tech world in this regard. Nearly all other companies don't really talk about freedom. If Eich was the CEO of any of those other companies, his donation would not (and should not) have mattered. If Eich had remained CTO of Mozilla, his donation would not have mattered either, as the CTO is not the face of the organization. The CEO's beliefs, however, do need to align with the core messaging of the company.

As for those who say that in 2008, opposing gay marriage was a mainstream view, and even Obama opposed it: in 2012, Obama publicly went on the record that his views had shifted to support. The Mozilla/Eich thing went down in 2014, and Eich had an opportunity to communicate that he'd changed his views. If he did that sincerely, he'd likely be CEO of Mozilla today. Instead he stood by his 2008 views, reaffirming that he's on the wrong side of history.

<comment><USER63> ALSO his inability to handle the controversy demonstrated his lack of CEO abilities.

<comment><USER64> You don't know what went on during my ten days as CEO, but that won't stop you from disparaging my CEO abilities without actual evidence, will it? Talk to @christi3k or @lsblakk or others who supported me before you disparage, if you care about testimony from people who were there.

Important update (should go without saying): that I left does not prove anything about CEO abilities. There's only one line I do say about why I left, and it is vague. You can find it on my blog from 3 April 2014, I'm not repeating it here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> You Americans (at least I think the majority of you are Americans) are getting quite ridiculous arguing over this.

Supporting a political candidate is a personal choice, one that is given to every eligible individual in a democratic state. Calling for someone to be fired or sever ties with them over political choice is retarded and counter- productive.

<comment><USER66> Americans love to moralize and punish each other. Instead of saying that they think somebody is wrong they like to make the other person into some evil person who can't even be argued with because they are so evil. That's why there is no real political discourse but just people screaming at each other.

<comment><USER67> Americans (at least the left leaning ones) also love holiness spiral signalling wars. Its quite possible OP doesn't believe anything in the linked to article, but that style of writing is how the left does sophistry, its the progressive modern way to signal superiority and worth. Op wants attention and smugness, that's how its done in 2016. People who believe any of the linked article is literally true end up with the same logical problems as people who believe every word of a holy book is literally true. The linked article is well written sophistry but don't expect sophistry to contain anything rational. If you didn't get to irrational beliefs in a rational logical manner, you're not going to escape from irrational beliefs using rational or logical discussion, which makes debating the specific points of the sophistry pointless.

<comment><AUTHOR>
        Its quite possible OP doesn't believe anything in the linked to article

By OP I assume you mean me, ie: the guy who submitted the article to HN, not the author.

First, I'm not out for attention, but thanks for that unprompted attack (dick). I submitted this as it seemed wrong that it kept being censored/flagged off HN. Honestly I expected it to be flagged off again, but hoped at least a few more people would get to see it.

For me the real issue isn't so much that Thiel is Trump supporter, but that Sam Altman and PG have both been very vocal in their denouncement of Trump, so keeping Thiel as a partner (not employee, let's be clear about that) seems incongruous at best, and down right spineless at worst.

Don't get me wrong, Donald Trump is huge cunt in my view, but even if I were indifferent to Trump, I'd still feel Thiel and Ycombinator should not be doing business together with such drastically conflicting values.

It's also probably worth mentioning I'm English and live in the UK, and this whole election reminds me of Brexit. Pretty much everyone I spoke to thought it would be a landslide for remain. Hell, even the politicians advocating leave didn't seem to think they'd win. Yet here we are, £GBP in free fall, and no one on either side seems to have any idea what to do next.

Even if it seems unlikely now, Trump could end up as president, and that's scary for a lot of people.

<comment><USER68> > Sam Altman and PG have both been very vocal in their denouncement of Trump, > so keeping Thiel as a partner seems incongruous at best, and down right > spineless at worst.

You may have to clarify this for me, because it sounds as if you believe people with different political ideals can _never_ work together, even on something non-political.

<comment><USER69> It seems the exact opposite to me. Spineless would be cutting ties with Thiel, even though it's against their principles to do so over political affiliation, just because some people who get hysterical over politics want them to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> In this thread and others I've seen this:

 _Shouldn 't individuals have a right to have terrible opinions?_

Of course they do. But a surprising number of "free speech" and "free market" people don't seem to understand how either works.

Individuals have a right to support white nationalists.

Individuals also have a right not to do business with those who support white nationalists.

Individuals _also_ have the right to organize protests against those who support white nationalists.

Let's be clear: defending the right to support a white nationalist while denouncing the right to protest against one isn't courage, it's sophistry.

<comment><USER71> You are correct that all of those are rights. The question here is what is the course of action that will lead to the best outcome?

People who believe YC should disassociate from Thiel are doing so based on the belief that the consequences of not doing so would be to promote a Trump presidency, which would have bad consequences to a variety of minority groups, etc.

People who believe YC should not disassociate from Thiel (I am one of them) would assert that doing so would set up or perpetuate a norm in which it is acceptable to ostracize people for unpopular opinions (unpopular relative to a certain community or context). Brendan Eich was another semi-recent example of this.

The effect of this, I believe, would be to: a) further balkanize and polarize our politics, and b) to exert chilling effects discouraging people from airing unpopular opinions, which in turn would inhibit an open marketplace of ideas, which, I believe, is necessary for progress. I believe individuals and societies can only grow by being exposed to a variety of ideas, some of which they disagree with, and ostracizing people who disagree would prevent this from being possible.

So both sides are arguing there are negative consequences they are trying to avoid. Which side an individual will come down on, I suspect, will depend on how much weight they place on each type of negative outcome.

As a personal aside, I know what it is like to have to be ostracized for holding an unpopular opinion. I am an atheist in a deeply red and religious state. I have tried to "come out" and quickly had to "get back in the closet" based on the intensity of ostracism I received. So I admit this kind of thing has made me more sympathetic to people holding unpopular opinions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Replace "Thiel" with "communism" and much of this article (and many of these comments) could be taken from the 1950s. McCarthyism is unacceptable from the right or the left.

<comment><USER73> McCarthyism was not about firing rich people for donating massive amounts of money to public political candidates. There is no similarity here.

<comment><USER72> So, none of the Hollywood writers who were blacklisted were rich? And none of them donated time or money to Communist causes? The intolerance is almost exactly the same.

<comment><USER73> I don't have a problem with a private company, such as YC or a production company, firing someone for publicly donating a massive amount of money to a political candidate.

McCarthyism was different because:

1\. Many of the people who were fired, blacklisted, or persecuted were only _suspected_ communists.

2\. Somewhat related: if any of the blacklisted people were rich enough to do so, they didn't _publicly_ donate their day's equivalent of $1.25M to any communist cause.

3\. There is no threat of violence, prison, or losing his livelihood for Thiel in this case.

<comment><USER74> > _" Many of the people who were fired, blacklisted, or persecuted were only > suspected communists"_

would it have been OK to fire, blacklist, or persecute them if they had been _actual_ communists, then?

<comment><USER73> It would have been OK with me to fire (and only fire) them if they were actual communists. Political beliefs are not a protected class in the United States.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> It puzzles me how come in USA people are considering only 2 candidates to chose from. At this stage it looks like people are not voting for the candidate they agree with, they are choosing the candidate they disagree with the most and then voting for the other one. This is only 1 step better than how it used to be in USSR where people had an option to chose essentially only 1 party. (sure officially there were more parties, as there are more candidates in USA, but it wasn't a real option in reality). Still far away from European democracies where each election you have multiple parties competing.

<comment><USER73> Your characterization of this election is wrong.

43% of Americans approve of Clinton[1].

33% approve of Trump[2].

That means the vast majority of Americans are not choosing the lesser of two evils. They actively like one candidate or the other (or both).

1\. [http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/hillary- clinton...](http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/hillary-clinton- favorable-rating) 2\. [https://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/donald- trump-f...](https://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/donald-trump- favorable-rating)

<comment><USER76> Huffington Post, seriously?

Per ABC News (which is still pro-Clinton), they are both equally unpopular:

[http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/poll-clinton-unpopularity- hig...](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/poll-clinton-unpopularity-high-par- trump/story?id=41752050)

<comment><USER73> Huffington Post is a respected poll aggregator. Also, I wasn't showing you unpopularity. I was showing you popularity. Those are different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> The people manipulation machine is so well tuned. The internet has failed us.

People think hating trump supporters is the cool thing to do and probably would put their life on the line against him. How crazy is that?

No longer is one even attempting to respect or even research another point of view. No time for that. Don't you realize that the only goal is to divide the people and remove focus from what actually matters?

The whole US politics is now about showing how the other candidate character is the most horrible and any lie is fair game, on any side.

The owner of basically all media wins the war - and thats not exactly surprising either.

</comment><comment><USER78> Imagine working in a world where when you disagree with the way someone votes or supports a political character, you tried to get them fired. No one would have a job anymore.

</comment><comment><USER79> Altman has it right, as much as Trump is reprehensible what candidate the partners of YC support has no bearing on whether or not a _business_ relationship should be broken up. Politics are a private matter, just as religion, your sexuality, who you choose as a significant other and so on.

Thiel has had the guts to publicly come out in support for one of two very reprehensible candidates, one who I would be happy not to see become president of the most powerful country in the world (privately I wonder if these two are really the best people America could come up with to lead the country but that's another matter). At the same time I'm not so conceited that I would call for others to dissociate themselves from a working relationship with Peter Thiel though _I_ will happily dissociate myself from him (easy for me to say, I have no business dealings with Peter Thiel, so probably I should say 'would').

Freedom is all about how _you_ live your life, not about telling others how they should live theirs and what they should and should not do and even if I would be happy to see Altman (and by extention YC) dissociate himself from Peter Thiel I would not stoop to the point of asking or demanding of him that he do so, it's his life, his business and any kind of cognitive dissonance between what he sees as a serious threat to America as we know it today/continued association with a supporter of that threat is entirely his own.

I've always had a real problem with people telling others how they should live their lives, decide for yourself what you want and leave other people out of it.

People telling other people how they should live is why there is religious persecution, why LGBT people can't marry and why political dissent is repressed in many places. This behavior has no place in an advanced society. Peter Thiel should be free to support whichever candidate he feels like and Sam Altman should be free to associate himself and YC with Peter Thiel.

</comment><comment><USER80> This kind of thinking is why even as a heavily left-leaning person, I have a real problem with the current attitude of the social-justice movement.

I believe Sam is right, Trump is a reprehensible person who has done horrific things and has no right being president. But just because I find him and a large majority of his supporters as ignorant, racist, homophobic and hate- filled people doesn't mean I have any right to exclude or excommunicate them just for their beliefs.

It sets a dangerous precedent to work towards silencing and vilifying a party whom you disagree with, and while it seems fine when from your point of view it is for the greater good, what happens when someone who works to silence and vilify you claims it is for the greater good?

On top of which, it makes us no better than the ultra-conservative isolationists to vilify and excommunicate based upon belief. Don't believe me? Just look at the language and justification used by Trump and his supporters and compare it to the language that we left-leaning use against Trump and his supporters.

A true democracy means every person, no matter how repugnant, gets their voice heard. A truly diverse community means that all people, no matter their race, sexual orientation or their political beliefs deserve to be heard. And a truly free society allows for the free exchange of ideas and beliefs, what defines us as people is our ability to recognize what is morally right or wrong in those ideas and rather than vilify, try to educate.

</comment><comment><USER81> There are two separate questions here:

Q1. Is Trump a spectacularly bad candidate, i.e. would he turn the USA intor a dictatorship, start a nuclear war, or do somethnig else equally damaging to society?

Q2. If Y Combinator shunned Thiel for supporting Trump, would that make a Trump presidency less likely?

If the answer to Q2 is no, as I suspect it is, then it doesn't much matter what the answer to Q1 is.

If we end up with a culture where people are shunned or lose their jobs for their political beliefs (e.g. Brendan Eich) or for who they associate with, that can only coarsen political debatre in the USA, in the long term making it more likely that it does become a dictatorship, something the people doing the shunning want to avoid.

<comment><USER81> In fact if Q1=yes and YC shunning Thiel would make it more likely that Trump would win, which it might well do as it plays into Trump's anti-establishment narrative, then people opposed to Trump should very much insist on YC not shunning Thiel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Removing someone from business just you have difference with their political view is wrong. Suppose lets take this next level:

\- In Restaurant people refuse to serve someone because his political view is different- Will it be great?

\- Theil decides to fire employee's from his business because they don't agree with his political views. - Does that sounds good?

\- For example, companies like uber/airbnb decides to serve only people who agree with the political view of their founders?

<comment><USER83> Fully agree - it should really be a protected clause for employment.

Let's say the 50% that support the left controls all the jobs as an example. Then you can fire the opposition if you don't fall in line and do what you're told. That's a scary thought.

I'm third party but I find it amusing and disturbing to watch both sides. If you can't understand why people don't like Hillary you're not being honest or open with yourself. The same goes for Trump.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> I for one support Y Combinator's commitment to tolerance. Tolerance is sadly lacking in today's political discourse. Like many, I find Donald Trump distasteful, but to call for the removal of an investor for supporting a candidate one disagrees with is both intolerant and small minded. A pluralistic democracy depends on both tolerance and civility for its' very existence. It's more than a little ironic to me that people critical of Donald Trump for, essentially, being intolerant are now expressing that criticism in the form of intolerance by calling for the banishment of his supporters.

</comment><comment><USER85> As a non-US outsider:

Would there be such a ruckus if this was about some other VC fund that bore more right-wing cultural flavors and they had a markable member who donated vast sums of money to the democrat nominee?

A rational person would not discriminate against someone because they do not support the same football club. I fail to see how this is any different.

</comment><comment><USER86> I see the divide in this country growing every day.

We aren't electing a king or queen.

It's a single political position that's checked by the House and Senate.

And yet because of the media, because of the Republicans, because of the Democrats, we're no longer Americans. We're a people who are being played against each other for revenue in a popularity contest.

I've never seen people act so terribly to each other on such a normalized scale. The polarization scares me.

Divided we fall.

<comment><USER83> "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it." (Benjamin Franklin)

The only thing that separates us from other countries is our Constitution.

When you have the federal government doing things outside the Constitution that should be legally left to the states, you end up with some really polarizing things that are applied to the whole country. That gets nasty.

I'm a states right supporter in a left leaning state. Not saying the right doesn't do this either, but the left gets very emotional if you disagree. They try to shut you down, gang up, think you're a bad person or an idiot if you disagree. When I disagree, it's usually because it's a state issue that they want to ram down the whole country. They often have a complete disdain for the Constitution and have no idea what a republic is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> While I agree with a lot of what Marco says in spirit, there is a HUGE point that Altman makes as well:

> The way we got into a situation with Trump as a major party nominee in the > first place was by not talking to people who are very different than we are. > […]

This one sentence I think fully encapsulates why the Republican base has gone to the extremes it has. They don't give a damn about who Trump is or the awful things he does because he is _listening to them_ , something the coastal intellectuals haven't done for decades.

Speaking as someone from one of the flyover states, I'd probably be supporting Trump too had I not come around to a lot more progressive viewpoints. The fact is yes a lot of what these people believe is wrong and backward, but just ignoring them and pretending that having the middle of the country doing nothing but hard labor and drugs is ok is exactly what got us here. Nobody gives a damn about the middle states outside of election year. Every year rural economies tank harder and harder but because it isn't a sexy problem like Shale Oil nobody gives a shit.

These people have been marginalized, ignored, and abandoned during some of the hardest economic transitional periods, and they're tired of it. You'd be voting for any candidate who at least gave the passing appearance of giving a damn about you were you left in that situation.

Edit: Misattributed the quote.

<comment><USER88> Not even just ignoring large chunks of the country, but actively arguing that their problems don't exist and that anyone who thinks otherwise is just making excuses for racism: [https://baselinescenario.com/2016/10/17/you-cant-get- there-f...](https://baselinescenario.com/2016/10/17/you-cant-get-there-from- here/)

<comment><USER87> Correct, this is huge and cannot be overstated.

Also that's an excellent article, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> I'm against Trump but this holier-than-thou grandstanding demanding shunning anyone who supports Trump is tiring and small-minded. It's a symptom of a society intolerant of other political beliefs. Moreover, do you think ostracizing 40% of society for their political beliefs is really going to improve our political future? It's easier to cut out people we disagree with than arguing with their beliefs (civilly).

Let's take the high road and stick to impassioned, reasoned arguments against Trump's beliefs and actions.

<comment><USER90> Dude, go see the comments in reddit /r/the_donald and then get back to me.

I hope that the "40%" (more likely 20%) will come back to rational thinking, but we will see. I consider myself a left leaning centrist, and I like some things Donald says, but it's only because a broken watch is right twice a day.

<comment><USER89> The Reddit and Twitter trolls are terrifying. But are you saying all (or even most) of the >40% of Americans that will vote for Trump are as bad as them?

We'll see what the final percentage is but 538 is polling Trump at around 42% today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> I'm not American. I live far away from the country and have zero influence on its politics.

However, America has a deep influence on the whole world, and, of course, it's president is very relevant for all nations in this planet. So I follow the political scenario closely.

As (hopefully) many, I'm completely against Trump. He's irresponsible, most of the ideals he spread are harmful to (my understanding of the) development of mankind, etc. I really hope that he isn't elected under any circumstances.

Still, it seems to me that Marco doesn't understand democracy, freedom of speech, belief, and a number of other values that are as important to mankind as those Trump poses a risk to. As a person should (has to) be free to vote to whomever they wish, also they are free to support that same individual.

Punishing such support is about the same as threating The Republic for supporting Clinton.

</comment><comment><USER92> I could write a mirrored copy for "How dare you support a warmongering, nation-selling, unpatriotic woman like Hillary." but these sorts of attacks are pointless in the end. No US-based company should be supporting Hillary. They don't have the best interest of the nation at heart, they have the best interest of their wallets instead.

I'm wondering when the far-left is going to wake up and realize by alienating their fellow countrymen with attacks and namecalling they are creating a larger problem, not solving it. You don't win over people's hearts by calling them bigots and sexists (especially when accusations like that get thrown around because of "manspreading" or "microaggressions").

Both political sides are allowing themselves to be manipulated so heavily by the media, and that there is an increasingly dangerous gap between "us" and "them" mentality going on in the States. I'm actually _genuinely concerned_ for the day of the election. Regardless of who wins, people have fanned the flames so much that I'm glad I live in a small rural area. Regardless of Trump or Hillary I'm expecting riots on the streets of many cities/regions.

I shouldn't be expecting that - and blog posts like this one only fan the flames ever higher.

</comment><comment><USER93> PG's essay "What you can't say" springs to mind:

>It seems to be a constant throughout history: In every period, people believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you would have gotten in terrible trouble for saying otherwise.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

</comment><comment><USER94> There seems to be this progressive instinct to claim that it's not enough for people to believe the same things I do, or support the same people I do, but instead everyone must always denounce the people I do in the ways I dictate or be shamed and boycotted. This instinct is divisive and damaging, and drives away erstwhile allies.

Posts like Pao's and this one, which are intended to enforce a progressive orthodoxy through the application of massive negative pressure, are far less effective in winning over converts than its authors suppose. A lighter touch would be _far_ more effective.

</comment><comment><USER76> Any form of ostracism based on someone's political views scares the hell out of me.

It constitutes an attempt to suppress political discourse and ultimately, freedom of speech.

Disappointing to see many in the tech industry not understanding this.

<comment><USER95> This opinion makes zero sense to me.

People are allowed to have opinions, and people are allowed to criticize those opinions. If you're going to publicly support something (like, say, with a million dollar donation), you should expect public feedback about said support.

There's no suppression of the freedom of speech happening here - Marco is expressing an opinion about an opinion.

By your logic, we should accept all opinions as valid and not critize any of them because that would be "suppression" of the freedom of speech. But clearly all opinions are not valid - and people on HN seems to have no problem (rightfully) critizing sexism and other discrimination in the workplace. And people are criticizing Trump (and his supporters) for the same thing.

<comment><USER76> Criticizing/arguing is fine.

But expelling Thiel from YC (a company which has nothing to do with politics), because of his views, is a form of punishment and discourages others from expressing their political opinions, in fear of the same happening to them.

So, it _is_ suppression of free speech, through _actions_ (not words) designed to intimidate.

<comment><USER95> That's still not suppression of free speech.

I know this is cliché, but freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence. I can exercise my freedom of speech at my employer and repeatedly say terribly insulting and disparaging things to my coworkers. My employer can then fire me. Would you say my employer is suppressing my freedom of speech?

The answer is obviously no. I still can speak freely, just not while voluntarily associated in a contract with my previous employer. I wouldn't say my coworkers intimidated me into being fired by my employer - I brought it upon myself by saying terrible things.

I see that as the same thing as this Thiel situation, except it's even more public. Instead of just insulting coworkers, Thiel is publicly (implicitly) (to some people) (in a large way) supporting discrimination and sexism. I'm not saying I would necessarily expel him, but I would have serious reservations about working with someone who could possibly do that, even if it's somewhat unrelated to the job.

<comment><USER96> As far as I know, freedom of speech protects you from the government. Since YC is not the government freedom of speech isn't applicable, but anti- discrimination or employment law could be. In fact if the government would limit YCs freedom to not associate with Theil, as guaranteed by freedom of speech, that could technically be a greater violation of rights. This is why some libertarians think that private discrimination should be legal.

> In short, we should condone private — but not government — discrimination, > even if the rationale is that a service provider simply doesn't want to deal > with the persons seeking service. That rationale — however offensive it may > be in some circumstances — is implicit in our right not to associate, which > is the flip side of our constitutional right of association, guaranteed by > the First Amendment.

[http://www.cato.org/policy- report/marchapril-2016/libertaria...](http://www.cato.org/policy- report/marchapril-2016/libertarianism-right-discriminate)

But I don't have the best understanding of US laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> Honestly, YC's position is reasonable.

> Some have said that YC should terminate its relationship with Peter over > this. But as repugnant as Trump is to many of us, we are not going to fire > someone over his or her support of a political candidate. As far as we know, > that would be unprecedented for supporting a major party nominee, and a > dangerous path to start down (of course, if Peter said some of the things > Trump says himself, he would no longer be part of Y Combinator).

Employment should not be based on political beliefs.

> Trump shows little respect for the Constitution, the Republic, or for human > decency, and I fear for national security if he becomes our president.

Similarly, that is a pretty clear statement that Trump isn't a conservative and I'd say that is honestly all YC needed to do.

</comment><comment><USER98> Am I to understand that diversity of opinion is only acceptable when all the various diverse opinions are compatible with your morality?

<comment><USER47> Yes. This is correct. Please look carefully at where and from whom you see that attitude - there is an obvious pattern.

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> Please dont invade this last bastion of rationality with emotional claptrap. Moral belligerence is not an argument.

</comment><comment><USER100> Marcos here, line many, falls for the classic myth. That change can come to America via the ballot box. That it matters who you vote for. That the election makes a difference. How many times do we need to be reminded that this isn't true? How many elections of false hope gone nowhere do we need to see?

I'll say it again as I have innumerable times before. It does not matter one bit who gets elected president.

As Emma Goldman once quipped, "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."

<comment><USER101> As long as the majority of the population is bickering amongst themselves over one thing or another, the system is working as intended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> I wonder if the author also thinks that YC should reject founders who support trump? Just add a little question to the application form:"Do you now, or have you ever, supported Donald Trump?" The next stage could be "Do you now, or have you ever, associated with a Trump supporter?" \- "if so, please list their names here so we can keep YC pure by excluding them from YC, and pass their names to the re-education brigades"

What could possibly go wrong? :)

</comment><comment><USER103> If Thiel donated $1.25M to the NRA, would this lead to the same calls for YC to distance themselves from Thiel? Where does this end?

<comment><USER104> I heard the NRA is a a racist, sexist bigot with rapidly mounting allegations of multiple sexual assaults! I don't know who this ceterun_censeo guy is, however, I reckon he obviously is supporting people who support Trump. Light the pitchforks! Shame him on twitbook!*

* I feel like I have to explicitly mark this post as sarcasm for fear of peoples stupidity. I listed some other things (like find out where he works) and it just made me sick, I couldn't do it, even in sarcasm and jest. I hope after the dust settles people remember how to be decent again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> tl;dr

The OP feels that if somebody disagrees with his political view point they should be silenced and oustered, and have their life ruined.

People like Marco are ruinous to society.

<comment><USER47> > People like Marco are ruinous to society

Yes, and ignoring people like Marcos shows integrity on Altman's part. We should never let despicable people like Marcos hold us hostage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER106> "Funding Trump, especially at this scale, represents general support of what Trump has said and done." \- That's a pretty big logical leap. Would a person who supports Hillary "generally support" flippant top-secret email handling?

Let's be logical: I think we can all agree that a person can support a candidate while not supporting every word they speak or action they take.

<comment><USER107> Thinking there is a lot of good in "what Trump has said and done", that his horribly racist, sexist and insane opinions and ideas are an acceptable price, and that Clinton would be a worse president is a legitimate opinion, but comparing Clinton's reckless behaviour to Trump's reckless statements is not. Forgiving past errors isn't the same as accepting future policies. Imprudent and illegal use of email is only a mistake, it doesn't represent a political program or opinion or stance, except for the generic disregard for the law that is implied by breaking it.

<comment><USER108> Did you really just write "Imprudent and illegal use of email is only a mistake?" My lying eyes must be deceiving me! Not only did you just write that illegal acts are "mistakes," but you also placed political opinions over the legality of actions. You effectively declared that political rhetoric is worse than actual illegal activity.

Go commit a crime 1/100th of the scale of HRC's and see if the uncaring justice system allows you to get away with it as a "mistake."

<comment><USER107> Pragmatically, political "rhetoric" is more important than crimes. For example, which candidate is more likely to maintain a good relationship between USA and Mexico? Not the one who wants Mexico to pay for a great wall. It doesn't depend on how illegally and immorally they behaved in the past.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> Threatening someones job, or pushing for exclusion based on their political beliefs, is a dangerous precedent. This tactic has been used to exclude people for their gender, race, and sexuality in the past. I don't care if the person working with me is a neo nazi or a hillary supporter or a Trump whack job. As long as they do their job, and dont' do anything that infringes on my ability to get my job done, I don't really care. Leave other people alone and let them believe what they want to believe.

</comment><comment><USER110> I wish more thinking could be put into their words when people write political posts like this. As much as I'd like to see healthy debates over presidential candidates of choice, this post is not written to facilitate conversation between two sides. Using strong moral indicators ("shame"), finger-pointing to specific influential targets (YC and Thiel) and staying on superficial rhetoric, the author deliberately wrote the post in a way to try policing over people with opposite political belief, leaving no room for argument.

If the targets were not influential or the title gave out the blog content (e.g.shame on my neighbor for being a Trump supporter), it would be treated like yet another personal rant against Trump. If the post presented comprehensive but complicated political analysis, it would loose a big chunk of the intended audiences. I applaud for Marco's ability to convey his political opinion to big audience through a simple blog post. That said, if you are used to performing critical thinking whenever you read stuff, this post is probably not for you.

This post doesn't give people much constructive material to argue over aside from fueling more potential verbal violence. The same goes for most media political pieces. They are political snacks, cheap to grab and quick to consume, but too many snacks are bad for health, in this case, bad for decision making.

</comment><comment><USER111> Citizens United and McCutcheon were such disasters for our democracy. Hopelessly partisan 5-4 votes from the USSC as well. No surprise given the way big money usually leans.

Corporations aren't people, and money isn't speech, no matter what five people in robes say.

The problem here isn't who Thiel supports, it's that he has the ability to throw $1,250,000 on a whim to that person. Very, very, _very_ few people can do that.

The reason millionaires and billionaires funnel so much money into elections isn't for the hell of it. It's because they know that money buys advertising, attack ads, etc. They know it helps their side win. Because yes, there are many stupid people in this country who are easily swayed by these tactics.

Yes, we all know it's not a guarantee that the candidate with the most money wins. But wealthy people (mostly) aren't stupid: they wouldn't be spending the money if they knew it wouldn't sway any votes.

It's not about buying the election, it's about increasing their chances of winning. An analogy would be buying 1000000 raffle tickets instead of 1 like most other people get. But our entire democracy is based around the idea of one person, one vote. Allowing unlimited money into politics effectively gives _vastly_ more votes to the wealthy.

Get the money out of politics and it's no longer an issue how big of a piece of shit Thiel is. He can like whoever he wants to and I couldn't care less. Oh shoot, I hope he doesn't see this and start bankrolling vendetta lawsuits against me now :/

<comment><USER112> If I earn money, should I be able to spend it how I like? If I have freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, isn't it fine to use my money towards the goals of freedom of speech & press? Citizens United is solid in my book.

If we were to take down Citizens United, how would you deal with media outlets like Fox or WaPo? They're clearly biased and have an agenda, their biased reporting acts as a contribution to a campaign. But they're businesses, and what they do isn't classified as campaign support, even though it should.

<comment><USER111> > If I earn money, should I be able to spend it how I like?

You already can't spend it to buy grenades, chemical weapons, illegal drugs, etc. You should not be able to spend it to influence elections either. I just explained why.

It's not 'fair', sure. But a lot of things aren't fair thanks to stupid people being stupid. Most recreational drugs are outlawed to protect the idiots that can't handle it. (Well, that's the narrative anyway. We'll sidestep the racial undertones, benefits to big pharma, etc.) Because otherwise, those idiots can go on to do the rest of us great harm. There are a lot of stupid people who are swayed by bullshit political attack ads (said attacks are deplorable from both sides), so we need some way to minimize that damage. Campaign contribution laws were not a perfect solution, but at least a stopgap measure. Now the floodgates are wide open.

> If we were to take down Citizens United, how would you deal with media > outlets like Fox or WaPo?

They operated long before Citizens United came down. They concern me as well, as does MSNBC, RT, Al Jazeera, etc.

It's probably not possible to get fully unbiased news, but we've definitely gotten _way worse_ in recent years on partisanship in news. And regardless of which party you support, you have to agree that the divide between us is becoming increasingly toxic and dangerous. The media is in large part to blame for stirring that up for their ratings.

Of course, even without news, the internet and social media are a big problem now too. Everyone simply follows like-minded people, blocks those they disagree with, and live in echo chambers to reinforce and polarize people even more. It's ... really starting to get very dangerous :/

> what they do isn't classified as campaign support, even though it should.

Agreed. Not that it'd matter anymore :(

<comment><USER113> Genuine questions here:

Should newspapers (i.e. corporations) be allowed to endorse candidates?

If so, how is this not spending money (paper, ink, time) to influence elections?

If not, how is this not an unacceptable limitation on free speech?

And, (to address a common objection to this line of reasoning), if "bona fide media organizations" get special free speech protections not available to the rest of us, who decides who is a "journalist" and who is an amateur?

<comment><USER111> Before this goes on too long, I'd like to stress that I don't have all the perfect answers in life. I don't think my views are perfect, but they are what I believe.

I know that often, how things 'should' be require laws that are basically impossible to write. But I really don't think I am being that unreasonable to say there's something grossly unfair about one person being able to pour in millions of dollars into an election to sway votes his way.

> Should newspapers (i.e. corporations) be allowed to endorse candidates?

That's a definite gray area. I can see arguments for and against that.

At least with a newspaper, people are actively choosing to buy it (barring it being in a vending machine with the endorsement on the front page.) It's usually pretty well known and clear that NYT runs liberal, and NYP runs conservative.

I don't get that choice with giant billboards as I drive around town. You can argue I can change the channel, but I don't really get that choice with TV and radio ads, either.

I'm sorry, but like with complex issues (eg abortion), I don't have a perfect answer for you on this point. Any choice is going to come with consequences. But that doesn't mean I think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater and have a cash free-for-all in our elections.

<comment><USER112> Good answer. So, what we're really boiling down to, is that it's unfair that Peter Thiel has more influence than other people?

<comment><USER111> Correct. That was what I was getting at with one vote, one person and buying more raffle tickets than another for a drawing. Money = votes, otherwise there wouldn't be so much money in play.

It's not a true democracy when the rich (whether that be the Koch brothers or George Soros) indirectly get way more voting power than the lower and middle classes get.

If people weren't swayed by obvious attack ads, then I wouldn't care how much money people wanted to throw away on elections. And indeed, they wouldn't throw any away, because it would be a total waste then.

<comment><USER10> There will always be ways to use a million dollars to promote a particular perspective. Maybe wealth inequality is what's really bothering you?

<comment><USER111> Yes. If everyone had the same amount of money, then we wouldn't have needed campaign finance laws. (We effectively don't have them now.)

I'm not even advocating for everyone to have an exactly equal amount of money. Hard work should be rewarded. But I don't think there's anything the Koch brothers do that entitles them to hundreds of _billions_ of dollars; when the poorest workers bust their asses for 80 hours a week and only earn $15,000 a year. That isn't a fair and just society. We can do much better. And we used to do way better. Income inequality has increasingly soared out of control for decades now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER114> What concerns me the most is not HRC or Trump. I will vote for neither and I don't believe that either of them will make a big difference. However a big divide in American society is the real problem. I grew up on Soviet Union and it Communist Party was the one and only ideology pushed down everyone throats. The ideology was more important than people (see for just one of many examples: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlik_Morozov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlik_Morozov)).

With the D and R camps right now I see exactly the same - the ideology becomes more important than anything else. For example, in this discussion "support for candidate X" factor is considered more important than personal and business relationship between people. This is exactly how Communist Party wanted the people to behave. I don't like it at all.

Instead of working _together_ , the D and R camps push supporters to the extremes. Unfortunately, if this continues then things will go really badly. I am really looking for a force/person who can unite the people instead of dividing them.

</comment><comment><USER115> What a load of bullshit. If an investor of a known Republican centered industry, let's say a gun manufacturer, donated 1.25M to Hillary's campaign, Marco would be saying praises of him while the people in the gun lobby would be calling for that investors head.

This election cycle has brought the worst out of everyone in the US. I regarded people like @sacca and @marcoarment in a much higher esteem before this began.

</comment><comment><USER116> Political apartheid. We've seen it. It won't end well.

Shame on Marco.

<comment><USER8> Where did we see political-only apartheid? I agree it's not sustainable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER117> Classic american politics: shame people on their political views. Don't argue, you'd risk understanding differing views. Better off cutting all ties with them and remain in your idiotic ignorance.

<comment><USER118> I somwhow don't think it's "classic". I think it is a fairly modern phenomenon (coming along with "safe spaces", "no platforming" and so on).

"Classic" would be something more along the well-known quote attributed to Voltaire about disagreeing wholeheartedly but defending the freedom of speech of the differing view.

And this Thiel shaming is the exact opposite of that Voltaire thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER119> Ok it's true if you cut off dealings with anyone who supports the a candidate you hate, then you are not violating any laws worth obeying, let alone the US constitution.

You are merely being a dickhead.

Do we really want to live in a world all ordinary aspects of life a reduced to a grand show of public piety, and worse, one where we compete to show our willingess to punish the heretics?

</comment><comment><USER120> I wish that more smart people would not demonize either party and instead analyze and dissect each platform and weigh the potential benefits and consequences of them.

It is much more convincing to read actual facts about the platforms, and it's a lot more constructive.

With the brain power here, we might even be able to make constructive suggestions and possibly even influence either party's policies so that regardless of the outcome it works in everyone's favor.

If we can point out that some component of Hillary's plan or Trump's plan will surely lead to disaster in some way, that itself may have the political power to influence revision in a positive way, especially right now since both candidates are searching for weaknesses in each other's campaigns.

This is one of the most intelligent communities in the world, so let's be constructive.

<comment><USER121> The problem is that Trump doesn't offer much in policy, even when it comes to policy he actually talks about and this doesn't just affect the things he wants to keep secret from ISIS. He also contradicts himself quite a lot and when he touches upon policy in his talking points it's often times questionable whether he's even aware of the actual policies he's referring to and to what degree.

There is just no basis for an actual discussion or comparison on policy details.

<comment><USER122> This might be a good strategy. What good does it do? People generally evaluate a candidate on policy last.

On the other hand, the best changes would be the most controversial, so probably wouldn't help his campaign.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> I think the core of this dispute is the question: How do we deal with those we deeply disagree with? Ostracism, shunning, and preaching? Or vocally opposing their beliefs, as civilly and constructively as you can?

America is increasingly settling into two tribes who seem to believe in the first option.

</comment><comment><USER123> The moment you disagree with someone's free speech is precisely the moment when that freedom needs to be defended the most. You can disagree with the contents of the speech, but not with the freedom to express ones self.

Shame on Marco, but I'm proud he has the right to speak his mind.

</comment><comment><USER124> Anyone who thinks Trump is the only racist in the running for the US presidency need only watch this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gUAdAYFbIc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gUAdAYFbIc)

</comment><comment> obj-g I don't wanna see this crap in my HN.

<comment><USER125> I agree; I don't know why _everyone_ hasn't flagged this already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER126> Despite my disagreement with him, Peter Thiel has a right to hold an opinion on which candidate he supports, and the right to donate to the candidate of his choice. It's a presidential election. You can't call it a fair election if as a society, we're threatening to punish people for supporting one candidate over another.

</comment><comment><USER127> When did Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition change its name to Project Include? These are the exact same extortionate tactics that Jackson and Sharpton have been peddling for decades.

[http://www.skeptictank.org/gen4/gen02379.htm](http://www.skeptictank.org/gen4/gen02379.htm)

</comment><comment><USER128> Translation: "Shame on Y Combinator for not punishing someone for supporting a candidate I don't like".

I don't like Trump, either (in fact, I rather strongly dislike him), but that doesn't mean I inherently dislike his supporters just because they happened to pick one of two evils in this shitfest of an election.

</comment><comment><USER129> 2 points : \- Peter Thiel has a right to support trump. The common misconception is that for something to be a right it should be morally right as well. This is not the case. Having the right to do something doesn't mean it is morally right to do so. \- You can support a subset of someone's ideas without agreeing to all of his ideas. For example, I think Socrates is a great guy but I don't agree with a lot of what he says.

The backlash towards Thiel is an interesting sociological phenomenon. It seems that the pressure to conform is extremely high in the tech community.

</comment><comment><USER130> This is a tricky situation. While many universally agree Trump is dangerous in his opinions and viewpoints on many issues, you can't just severe ties with an investor because of their political affiliation. Thiel might be supporting a candidate with racist and bigotry views, but this is his choice. When it comes to business, you should never make things personal and I think worrying about someone's political affiliation is definitely making it personal.

Might not be the most popular opinion, but I think Sam made the right call here.

<comment><USER9> By Altman's own argument, there's a line Thiel could cross that would make YC sever ties with him. All it would take is for Thiel to repeat some of the things Trump said.

So having a YC partner fund hate speech is okay, as long as it's by proxy. This is a baffling stance.

<comment><USER130> There is a difference between having an opinion or stance on something and repeating racist, ignorant and bigotry statements from a candidate. As far as I know, Thiel has done nothing but make a donation, he isn't forcing his views on anyone at YC nor publicly parroting/endorsing things Trump is saying.

In this instance Thiel has done nothing more than make a donation to a political candidate many don't like.

<comment><USER131> > There is a difference between having an opinion or stance on something and > repeating racist, ignorant and bigotry statements from a candidate.

There is, indeed. Donating over a million dollars that can be used for ads repeating racist, ignorant, and bigoted Trump statements falls squarely in the latter category.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER132> There's a stunning degree of false equivalence happening here with regard to Trump.

Trump is not Romney or McCain. It's not a left/liberal-only claim that Trump is dangerously unfit to be president. There are scores of republican national security experts who have written open letters, come out publicly against him, etc.

To claim he's just another side of a coin is absurd. This guy is out there, as we speak, dangerously fanning the conspiracy that the election will be rigged.

The decision by YC sent a signal about diversity of opinions. But, it sent other signals as well. One is that it further normalizes Trump. One can make a strong argument that of the signals YC could have sent, the latter is worse.

Where's the line? Would Trump need to literally have been a klan member for it to be okay for an organization to say, you know what, we're not going to associate with people publicly supporting this guy? Somewhere there's a line, and many of us believe it was crossed a long time ago.

The other thing is, Thiel is not going to be 'unfairly silenced' if YC were to cut ties. He's a vocal billionaire who in our current system of money and politics has a megaphone far larger than most. It's disingenuous to equate YC cutting ties with Thiel to firing an employee over their personal political beliefs. It's a privilege to serve on a board at that level, and there should be a higher moral standard.

<comment><USER133> > Trump is not Romney or McCain.

And in four years, when the Republicans elect candidate X, you'll say "X is not Trump or Romney, he's literally Satan."

</comment></comment><comment><USER134> Man the left just excels at doublethink. "Tolerance only when we like what you say!" "A voice for the marginalized, as long as the marginalized are women and minorities!"

</comment><comment><USER135> I admire YC for continuing to stand up for the principle and practice of free speech.

</comment><comment><USER136> Wouldn't this sort of behavior play into Trump's view of 'the system' being rigged against him? Shouldn't individuals have a right to have terrible opinions?

<comment><USER137> David Duke probably thinks "the system" is rigged against him too... and if you include private institutions in your definition of 'the system' it is and should be. If you hold reprehensible views (though technically legal), then society punishes you. As it has every right to. Trump will complain no matter what, that has zero weight. When someone who cries wolf like Trump isn't complaining, then something is terribly wrong.

> Shouldn't individuals have a right to have terrible opinions?

Yes. And society at large has every right to punish and socially ostracize these who hold abhorrent views.

I feel like technically minded people get mixed up between "we withhold from the government - the institution in our lives with absolute power - the right to silence citizens" and "we expect the private companies/organizations we support to use their influence to better society, not ruin it."

</comment></comment><comment><USER138> American politics have become radioactive. Intelligent people stay as far away from it as possible. Because getting involved and becoming visible can mean the end of you in more than one form.

We will never have a good government if good people fear the process and the media so much so that they move-on and devote their lives to more productive pursuits.

Imagine you are not perfect, decide to run for office and are subjected to the kind of media attacks we see escalate to lower lows every election? Who in their right mind wants a part of that?

To some degree one has to admire Trump for enduring the massive campaign against him. A lesser person would have imploded a long time ago. This isn't an endorsement as much as it is recognition of a fact.

What is happening in this election is despicable. The two main candidates are hardly the best this country can produce. And it is our fault. Entirely our fault. Not theirs.

My guess is it will have to get far worst before people wake up and realize we have been in an "emperor has no clothes" environment for decades.

This isn't about Democrats or Republicans. This is about a government taken over by some of the most despicable self-serving people around. Ambulance chasers who would not amount to much had they not gone into government.

Not sure how this will fix itself, if ever.

</comment><comment><USER139> If Trump is your enemy, like he is mine, fight Trump. To fight and berate others for a twice-removed association is not just stupid, it's lazy, and a waste of your and everyone's time. I see 500+ comments here but no convincing anyone. Perhaps you feel impotent and that you can only shout platitudes onto deaf ears. Think harder, act smarter. Vote, and get those you can influence directly to vote. This thread right here, is not the way.

</comment><comment><USER140> The whole discussion brings to mind George Orwell.

'Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.'

I believe US democracy is founded on similar notions, and underscores the necessity of this dialogue. Thank you HN for supporting this open forum.

</comment><comment><USER141> Because of extreme overuse, I think that now roughly half of the country don't care about being called racist or sexist anymore. Congratulations.

In fact, in certain circumstances it's actually a pretty good evidence that something "interesting" is being said and someone is trying to silence it, like how searching for grayed out comments in HN is the first thing I do in threads like this.

</comment><comment><USER142> Thiel is not supportung Trump because of Trump's racism and sexism. He is supporting Trump because of his policies and disruptive capacity. This is the difference between supporting a candidate and attributing everything a candidate does to the supporter.

Hillary Clinton is a war criminal by many standards. Should all Clinton supporters sever ties with YC?

</comment><comment><USER143> If Trump is elected President of the United States will the author disown the United States?

</comment><comment><USER144> It takes great bravery to allow your beliefs to affect your bottom line. Thiel has demonstrated this bravery by spending his time, money and reputation on Trump.

Now it's Altman's turn. If he truly believes that "This election is exceptional. Donald Trump represents an unprecedented threat to America", then Marco is correct that supporting Thiel is against his beliefs. Good on Marco for calling it out to us so eloquently.

Obviously, Thiel is very influential and parting ways with him would be a big deal. It's likely it would cost Altman time, money and reputation. It's possible Thiel will hold a grudge and that will have unknown ramifications that might hurt YC and others.

This is why it's brave.

Business leaders often pretend they aren't choosing a side, when they always are. Be brave Altman. We'll support you.

<comment><USER145> > _Be brave Altman. We 'll support you_

Do you support him whether he cuts ties with Thiel or not?

</comment></comment><comment><USER146> Character Quality often overlooked: Respectfulness. I definite it as how do we treat people we disagree with?

We lack this in society as a whole. Respectfulness

</comment><comment><USER44> I see it as a good thing that Trump is so foolishly blatant - You can SEE all the filth - It's all right there in plain sight. His ego is so huge, he couldn't even censor himself if his life depended on it; he is the perfect public figure.

</comment><comment><USER147> I believe that Trump is uniquely unfit for office, more than any major presidential candidate I've seen in my lifetime.

I believe, though I cannot prove, that should Trump be elected, he stands a well better than average chance of being an existential threat to our republic. So I do not take this election lightly at all.

That being said, I believe Mr. Thiel may say has he likes and spend his money where he likes, though his choice of candidate, like for many Republican voters, disappoints me greatly. I do not believe he speaks for YC in doing so, and I do not expect YC to terminate their relationship with him for him doing so.

I see no shame in this.

</comment><comment><USER148> Was somebody under the impression that there are no conservatives involved in funding and creating startups?

If you live in a world where you think you only have to deal with people who follow your political ideology, I feel sorry for you.

</comment><comment><USER149> Who stands to lose more if Theil were to no longer be affiliated with YC? Is YC a social endeavor with a political agenda, or a program for entrepreneurs?

If the former, might want to tell the investors. Start with John Meriwether. ;)

</comment><comment><USER150> When Barbara Bush and I are on the same side of this it's not a political purge, it's a matter of basic human decency. The Trump candidacy is a litmus test of basic civil sanity. Supporting it is insane.

</comment><comment><USER151> Sam Altman has already stated what Peter is allowed to say (and presumably think) as a condition of his continued association with YC. There was a recent spate of articles by and about Sam Altman, including a probing interview by his brother (presumably in lieu of a blatantly self-serving monologue by the subject). So we kind of know Sam's viewpoint and his tendency toward defining who can say and do what at YC and on HN. I would call that shameful in a public commons, but this is a private enterprise, and Sam is free to set the boundaries in Sam's world.

</comment><comment><USER152> I am an outsider, but I don't understand why Wikileaks doesn't leak into CNN.com and friends in the MSM?

or something like this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY) ?

Nothing bad sticks to the democrat candidate. I'm not talking about proofs, but about headlines that get written all the time for clicks. Where are those for Hillary? Not on CNN, nytimes, etc.

Every day there is a new headline about how Trump winning would destroy the universe. Where should I read the news? Politico? Infowars?

<comment><USER145> > _Every day there is a new headline about how Trump winning would destroy the > universe._

I'm also an outsider (Canadian). It seems like an endless stream of anti-Trump news everywhere I go. Yet HN had a thread just the other day with people commenting about how "unfair" things are towards Clinton. I don't get it, either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER153> Shame on this political shaming. Not everyone has to agree with you.

</comment><comment><USER154> Someone had to do it. What a delightful clickbait subject to remind people that you exist.

</comment><comment><USER155> is this a call for censorship, exclusion, and ostracism on the basis of political preferences? shame on the author.

</comment><comment><USER156> During extensive, complex discussions like these, it becomes readily apparent that while the HN/Reddit-style threaded text forum is the best format I know of, it's still woefully inadequate.

There will soon be 1000 comments on this page- none of which are merely simple thoughts. Nobody could read them all and still maintain a cohesive, holistic perspective on all the issues presented. Most of the comments themselves splinter into anecdotal tangents, and surely every comment has overlap with another comment here. But, should any comment be omitted from consideration? I think not, because every opinion presented holds unique value. We, as mere humans, just can't consider each one individually. Not at internet scale.

While it's a precarious use of ML, we really do need computational synthesis and analysis to draw trends from these discussions. We all know ML recognizes and reinforces biases- so we shouldn't be training a classifier by using HN's sentiment as a baseline. That said, we need a solution here, ideally soon. Until that happens, I won't be wasting my time dropping 2 cents into a bottomless void.

<comment><USER10> > every opinion presented holds unique value.

Most of the comments here are actually repeating the same few opinions over and over in different words. For example, about half the top-level comments here are a variation of "shame on the author".

A system that consolidates duplicated sentiments would probably cut this page down to size, but ML is not even remotely up to the task. A system based on human review could do so, however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER157> I don't think that a person, president or not, is to play a crucial role. Society has a dynamic in which a president is only a mirror for you to watch yourself. Perhaps the mirror show you something that you don't want to see and you can try to clean it or hide it, but that mirror just show how society is for real. I sincerely and literaly think that we should get used to watch candidates for presidency to be nuked in tv, as in a big brother show, no more secrets allowed. We should see clearly and understand deeply that we are just human animals and nothing more. A candidate for presidency should be able to show some kind of humor, witful ideas, clear thinking, some catastrophic behaviour and be able to inspire some trust. I believe that nothing more can be expected.

For those looking forward for a better future, the challenge is not in choosing your president, but in becoming your best friend.

Any of you can be the best president, I am sure of it, just awake, get up in the morning and see yourself in the mirror for real.

Edited for clarity of mind.

</comment><comment><USER158> Many people think this election is different from all the past elections but I'm telling you:

When Trump or Hillary become president nothing will change in your daily lives. Mostly everything you do will remain the same.

So this election matters almost as much your favorite sport team winning some stupid sport which is to say it's a matter of life or death.

<comment><USER159> I'm getting flashbacks from 2000. I would hope we could learn from history, but alas, history tells us otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER160> So if I publicly attack a Y Combinator legend the HN community gets to fight about politics?

In that case, I'll just leave this debate between Hedges and Reicht for everyone here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr4cXH3Fil8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr4cXH3Fil8)

</comment><comment><USER161> I would encourage people to look at the similarities between Sam's decision not to punish Thiel and this: [https://www.gofundme.com/reopen-a-nc- republican-office-2ukup...](https://www.gofundme.com/reopen-a-nc-republican- office-2ukuprzy)

</comment><comment><USER162> Bit off topic: does $1.25 million really seem like that much money? I mean I accept it is a huge sum of money in a normal context, but in this context (donations to political parties) is it really exceptional?

I mean I've heard of wealthy men losing multiples of that at Poker.

<comment><USER131> If I'm reading [https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N0002386...](https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N00023864) correctly, it's a good 1.5% of _all_ pro-Trump money spending (currently $84,640,147) in this election.

</comment></comment><comment><USER163> I was one of those "I loathe your opinion but I will defend to the death your right to say it" people when it came to Trump right up until now.

He's started claiming that if he loses the election, it'll be because of voter fraud, which is indefensible.

</comment><comment><USER164> I don't know why there is so much hype on debating if companies got sexism and racism or other oppression issues: they do have some, period. And it should be strongly improved.

If we pretend the contrary, we really have to question ourselves.

</comment><comment><USER165> Wit so I'm supposed to be enraged because Y Combinator won't cut ties with an associate who supported a candidate some people don't like? There's no shame here. Hillary's got her own dirt too so should everyone who associates with either candidate be ashamed?

There's nothing heinous or shameful about supporting a presidential candidate; I don't want either to be President but it's ridiculous to hold Y Combinator accountable for an associate's political choice, those people expecting otherwise should be ashamed.

</comment><comment><USER166> Can someone help me follow the logic whereby its "facist" or "hypocritical" for people to find fault in someone who is supporting an admitted sexual predator and racist?

</comment><comment><USER167> Trump support is not free-speech, tolerance issue or diversity issue, it's political issue.

As I understand it, Thiel is one of the 10 or so part time partners in Ycombinator. He is also board member of Facebook, so shame on Facebook.

I don't think Thiel's involvement puts large shame on Y Combinator, but at the same time I don't condone political activism that tries to isolate Thiel and his money by shaming his partners. Business is not politically neutral zone.

</comment><comment><USER168> no one should be shamed or fired for their political beliefs. go fuck yourself marco.org

</comment><comment><USER169> Because of these pussified posts, I am voting for Trump.

</comment><comment><USER170> > [Altman] _If Peter said some of the things Trump says himself, he would no > longer be part of Y Combinator._

In the US, at least since Citizens United, money is speech. By donating to his campaign and vocally supporting Trump, Thiel IS SAYING what Trump says.

Also, Thiel is no friend to freedom of speech or freedom of the press. That should have disqualified him earlier, even before this whole Trump affair.

<comment><USER10> > Thiel IS SAYING what Trump says

No, he is supporting his presidential bid. That's all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER171> I personally respect, and am thankful for the fact that people exist that have opinions that differ, even a lot, from mine. Especially on moral issues. I find it pretty immoral to have too much faith in ones moral framework. I will do business with anyone especially those with different political or other opinions than mine, they are usually more interesting conversations.

</comment><comment><USER172> Maybe YC is worried that if they boot Thiel, and Trump wins, he'll be vindictive enough and powerful enough to crush YC. Like, it would be a real shame if the Attorney General started looking into Fair Housing violations by AirBnB, or if Dropbox suddenly lost the government connections it's been cultivating by putting Condi Rice on their board.

<comment><USER173> If Trump wins I suspect that the H1B program would be an obvious target for him.

And from experience in the UK referendum some recent immigrants are going to get killed as a result of the way Trump is poisoning the political arena.

</comment></comment><comment><USER174> I strongly believe that businesses should stay out of politics - no matter what the rhetorics and controversies are. They are built by efforts of lot of different people and someone at the top shouldn't get to decide what is good for everybody. It's bad enough that editorial boards of major news media goes out and openly endorse political leader. That completely destroys their neutralism and ability to serve news without bias. Its equally bad that that outgoing president who is supposed to stay out of politics is now using his powerful position to change the election.

Fundamental principle of democracy is that _you have to trust the people to make the right choice_. If you can't then you shouldn't have democracy. The argument that the big powerful entities are expected to forcefully shut down the candidate because he/she is deemed not "normal" or morally corrupt is bad for democracy. You need to let _people_ decide that with their _vote_.

So the last thing we want is businesses start firing their employees for holding different political beliefs. May be there is a red line somewhere, for example, real Nazi party coming in to existence without any pretense whatsoever. It would make sense then if POTUS, businesses and major media openly rebels against it. But outside of those extreme cases where do you draw that line is anyone's guess and convenience. Y-Combinator is doing absolutely the right thing for the current situation, IMO.

PS: I do not endorse any candidates at this point. Above statements are NOT the endorsement for Trump or anyone else. This is what I believe should be the core principles for functional democracy that allows for different opinions.

</comment><comment><USER175> Unemployment is really going to skyrocket if we start firing people for which presidential candidate they vote for.

</comment><comment><USER176> I disagree with Marco on the fact that keeping Thiel at YC is against diversity. Sam Altman is accepting to work with someone with opposite political views, which require a lot of courage.

How can you stand for diversity if you refuse to accept to work with people who have different opinions (and opposing opinions)?

</comment><comment><USER177> > one wonders what YC would do if PT invested in an app that celebrated and > enabled racism, bigotry, assault.

[https://twitter.com/lautenbach/status/788197878133030912](https://twitter.com/lautenbach/status/788197878133030912)

</comment><comment><USER178> Did or would Sam Altman support Brendan Eich when he was mozilla's CEO and accused of homophobia?

</comment><comment><USER179> This is a free speech country. People can associate with whomever they want. Celebrate that we can say and write deplorable things to one another. Peter Thiel can do what he wants with his millions, _celebrate_ that. You can moralize about how nuts Thiel is to do that, I celebrate you for that.

On the right, I've been told God will judge me if I don't vote Trump (not biblical - I told them where to go.) On the left, I've seen violence and vile hate directed at trumpsters.

Everyone calm down, please. It is possible for reasonable people to disagree 100% on Trump v. Clinton. Don't try to ruin people's lives or be a hater over someone's opinions. Other people have dimensions, and life is never black and white. Always be civil, just shake your head in cases like this and say, "well, I simply don't know where your head is on this one."

We can settle our disagreements at the ballot box.

Disclaimer: I'm not voting for Trump or Clinton for (in my opinion) obvious reasons, and I'm not emotional about either.

</comment><comment><USER180> Response to Sam Altman's post:

 _A Trump presidency would be a disaster for the American economy. He has no real plan to restore economic growth._

The truth is that no one knows for sure what will be best for the American economy for the next four years. There are too many variables and too much unpredictability to know for certain what a Trump president would look like.

 _His racist, isolationist policies would divide our country, and American innovation would suffer._

This is a fallacy. The country is already divided over immigration, and has been for a long time. The prevalence of this kind of fallacious rhetoric from elites like Sam Altman is precisely why the nationalist faction chose Trump to lead them. In order to counter this kind of deceptive propaganda, they needed someone willing to use equally powerful rhetoric in their favor.

Also, the claim that his policies are racist is simply not true. They are not racist.

 _But the man himself is even more dangerous than his policies. He 's erratic, abusive, and prone to fits of rage._

Sam cites no evidence and makes no argument to back up these exceptional claims. I have been watching Trump for an entire year, and I have not observed any erratic or "abusive" behavior. At least, nothing exceptional that wasn't already directed at him. Sure, he savaged his GOP rivals with name-calling and theatrics. But they had already called him a clown, a sideshow, a circus. So it's OK to call Trump names but not OK to for him to respond in kind?

Trump supporters see this hypocrisy and understand that Trump is doing what he needs to do to win the election.

 _He represents a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and immigrants, and I believe this reason alone more than disqualifies him to be president. My godson's father, who is Mexican by birth and fears being deported or worse, is who convinced me to spend a significant amount of time working on this election at the beginning of this year, when Trump still seemed like an unlikely possibility._

More blatantly fallacious reasoning. Because a Mexican national fears deportation (why?), suddenly Trump is a threat to all women minorities and immigrants?

Ridiculous fallacy. This is why Trump must use the rhetoric he does, because his opponents are so full of shit that they don't even realize it.

 _Trump shows little respect for the Constitution, the Republic, or for human decency, and I fear for national security if he becomes our president._

I'll grant that Trump shows little explicit respect for the Constitution. But Hillary doesn't either. No one's respecting the constitution because no one (Sam Altman) has been demanding it. There's nothing in the Constitution that guarantees immigration to anyone who wants it, which so far is the only issue he has identified that has not been a grossly biased representation.

Speaking of which, "human decency." Again, another extreme claim with absolutely NO argument or evidence to back it up. Altman boldy claims that Trump shows little respect for human decency, and yet anyone who has actually watched Trump interact with his supporters all year long shows that he is overflwing with of decency. People love him, he makes them feel good just to be around him. Here Altman is appealing to popular prejudice about Trump, which has been reinforced repeatedly by others like him in his echo chamber.

It's one thing to not waste time justifying claims for which the evidence is abundant and easily found. But there's no such evidence for these claims. There's a lot of other people saying similarly bad things that also have no evidence. So there's a clear reason why this perception exists. But I see no real argument.

As for fearing for national security? Again just another emotional appeal with no justification. What about Hillary actively antagonizing Russia? Speaking recklessly of no-fly zones over Syria, which our own Generals claim would mean going to war with Russia. This fear just seems ignorant.

 _Though I don't ascribe all positions of a politician to his or her supporters, I do not understand how one continues to support someone who brags about sexual assault, calls for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the US, or any number or other disqualifying statements. I will continue to try to change both of their minds._

First thing: if Sam Altman wants to understand, then he needs to learn how to listen. Trump never bragged about sexual assault, and to claim he did is a lie. Everyone repeating this is also lying. If you actually want to understand, the first thing you need to do is admit your interpretation of this is wrong. If you can't do that, you'll never make any progress towards understanding.

As for a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the US? Immigration is not a right. There's no amendment that says anyone anywhere has the right to come to this country. We have the right (and some would say duty) to restrict entry to anyone for any reason. The fact is that Muslims tend to hold very different values than Americans (Sam Altman might want to ask what Peter thinks about Muslim's beliefs on homosexuality), and there there are Muslim organizations who have made an explicit goal of destroying Western European civilization through a combination of settlement, violence, and propaganda. You can't say that about any other major religion in the world.

And so of all the "basket of deplorables", that is the one I will admit to. I am not racist, at least, no more than anyone can be in the US given the amount of race-baiting done by corporate media. I am not sexist. I'm not homophobic or anti-semitic.

But I am an Islamaphobe. Islam scares me. The religion itself scares me as does the activities of its leaders-- the so-called moderates as well as the extremists. It scares me more than any other major religion in the world. No other religion of significant size has the same combination of intolerance, subversiveness, violence, conquest, and hostility to those outside the faith. I look at the character of Islamic civilization, and I know without a doubt that I do would not want to live under those values. While I totally understand that it's possible to interpret the Quran and Hadith in less violent and aggressive ways, and that most Muslims are just ordinary people who want to live happy and healthy lives, that's not the trend in the world today. There's not a single Islamic country that I would want to live in.

You won't see me harassing anyone or trying to deny American Muslims their 1st amendment rights. It's not hatred I feel. I'll never condone "hate speech" or "hate crimes." I do not fear ordinary Muslims, individually. I am not even opposed to having a solid and stable minority of American Muslims in perpetuity. But I most emphatically do not think we should be inviting substantial numbers of them into the country. We are not prepared to assimilate them and once there are sufficient numbers of them in the country they will start agitating to impose their political will on everyone else, which is likely to include political violence.

</comment><comment><USER181> From these discussions, are we to take it that YC will not invest in founders who support Trump?

<comment><USER182> YC seems to be sticking with Thiel, so founders should be safe regardless of their views. As it probably should be.

I would hope that YC already avoids founders who act like Trump though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER183> According to the USSC, money in politics is speech. Now, Trump's speech is also Thiel's speech. The only remaining question should be if YC partners are able to keep that position while saying and supporting harmful and often false ideas.

</comment><comment><USER184> We cannot deny the overwhelming amount of value P. Thiel and M. Arment has brought to this world. Politics is ugly and divides people instead of bringing them together. The Hacker News community is all about technological progress, which is based on science, and as such, do not let your subjectivity cloud your judgment.

Do you think the world would be a better place by removing Thiel because of his political position? Asking to fire Thiel is as insane as asking to fire the 40% of Americans backing Trump (based on latest poll results: [http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/latest-polls-show- tr...](http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/latest-polls-show-trump-behind- clinton-the-2016-drivers-seat))

I wish you guys would put all your vigorous efforts on revamping the political system than pointing fingers at invaluable people.

</comment><comment><USER185> And this just out - adding to my other post:

[http://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/788121240036896768](http://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/788121240036896768)

</comment><comment><USER186> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) This surely is an off-topic on HN.

</comment><comment><USER187> I'm distrustful of anyone who has a headline (or placard) that starts with the words "Shame on ..." It usually prefaces some soft-headed socialist sentiment.

</comment><comment><USER188> Is it so crazy to say that Thiel is free to support whatever candidate he wants... While Graham and Altman are free to choose who they do business with?

</comment><comment><USER189> I am not a US citizen and definitely not familiar with all its laws and rules and such. I do wonder, if one thinks endorsing Trump is punishable, shouldn't they bring up a legal case? If it is not against the law, why cannot it be done?

If Trump is a new Hitler, shouldn't there be a legal way to put him out of the election? If his campaign is legal, why all the fuss? Just don't vote for him. Isn't that exactly why you Americans hold elections?

You want democracy and elections, you got to live with the outcomes. You may get what you don't want.

<comment><USER190> > Just don't vote for him. Isn't that exactly why you Americans hold > elections?

This is a loaded question and a good one at that. To put it simply, the presidential election is particularly unique compared to other elections in the US because of several intertwining factors.

1) Unless under exceptional circumstances, the US presidential voting system will always devolve into a 2 party race. Because of this, "choice" is much more of an illusion than people are taught to believe in the US.

2) The manner of choosing party representatives (Trump, Clinton) can be gamed or rigged. For the parties, this is to unify support and strengthen the chance that the president will at least be "on your side" (left, right) even if you don't support all of that candidates particular stances. This sounds great, but this tosses all of the niche voters, which is a broad net because people are forced to be in one of these two parties to not have a wasted vote in the presidential election, to the side and forces them to pick a lesser of two evils.

3) The presidential election is unique in that it uses an electoral college system. When you vote, you are __not __voting for the president. You are voting for someone to vote on your behalf and hoping that they follow through (yes, oversimplified but it is how it works at the most basic level). This is why you can predict the outcome of the race based on just how a few swing states vote. It 's also why your vote doesn't really matter if you are not in one of these swing states.

And these are just the obvious problems in the __presidential election__ system in the US. Voting for representatives, Senate and House, are just as bad in other ways (gerrymandering being the big issue). So no, it's not really as simple as not voting for Trump (or any other candidate for that matter).

On another note, most Americans do not understand how the system truly works and the flaws. On top of that, if you live inside the US or obtain most of your news via US media outlets, I've found that there is a huge bias and attempt to ignore certain realities. As someone who works and lives abroad consuming news that's not even in English, it was clear early on that Trump was going to win the primaries and that Clinton in particular would have a hard time against Trump. The vocal reaction to the current situation is exactly what you should expect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER182> I don't know what the right thing for YC to do here is. But whatever it is can wait until after the election.

The last thing you want is to enable Trump to concoct a narrative that "crooked Hillary" is forcing businesses to discriminate against Trump supporters.

Trump is an existential threat to democracy and Thiel is disgusting for supporting him, but it looks like he will lose. However he is claiming that the election will be rigged against him. This is incredibly dangerous and YC firing Thiel could be like pouring gasoline onto a fire.

</comment><comment><USER191> Shame on us for making this post to the front page.

<comment><USER10> Outrage, one way or the other, generates engagement. News outlets know it, now so do we.

If there's some value in the discussion, it is that most of us actually do know people with differing political views, and we somehow learn to live and work together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER107> Maybe Y Combinator considers "unsupporting" Ellen Pao important enough to side with Peter Thiel and, indirectly, Donald Trump.

</comment><comment><USER192> As with Title I vs Title II and other crap like this, this is just a symptom of a bigger problem: we have only two choices. Both times, YC got dragged into a situation where people demand they sever ties and punish people for their political views.

In our first-past-the-post system, even if Hitler and Mao were the nominees of the 2 parties, would the 3rd party get even 15% of the vote?

[https://twitter.com/GregMozart/status/788448482264768512](https://twitter.com/GregMozart/status/788448482264768512)

I am very happy with YC's decision not to sever ties with people based on their support of a political position that a large (over 20%) portion of the population seems to have. The way that was done with Brendan Eich at Mozilla. There should be some separation between the workplace and a person's personal politics.

These people themselves are not killers, rapists, they do not exercise their own power to coerce others etc. They don't endorse every single bad thing their candidate does.

For the record, I think Trump is not very interested in learning about nuances, half the time it's not clear what he is really saying, almost never reconsiders his position, instead he just easily disavows his own statements, and that alone disqualifies him. But should I cut business ties with every Hillary supporter because I believe they are for brinksmanship and escalating the threat of a nuclear war with Russia? Many are. But that has such a small effect on the good we can do together, in the actual sphere of our collaboration. If I want to do something about the doomsday clock, cutting ties with my coworkers is _very, very far down the list of effective things to do_.

Even in your personal life, realize that arguing about politics is like arguing about astronomy -- the odds are overwhelming that you can't really change anything in the current election. So if your significant other likes a different baseball team, that's not nearly as important as shared values about how you're going to raise your children, or basic respect to human beings, or other things in your _real life_.

I don't live in California, and I know New York State (where I live) will vote Democratic as it always has, same as Cali. But we embrace political diversity much more than California, it seems. It may be more OK to publicly disinvite Douglas Crockford from a conference for his own personal behavior (I personally think it is ridiculous, but still), than to disinvite someone for mainstream political views or support for another candidate.

But as I said, this is all a symptom of our first-past-the-post system:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo)

</comment><comment><USER193> So by Marcos own logic does anyone who support Hillary support slut shaming 12 year old girls who have been raped?

</comment><comment><USER13> The most damning thing to me about this is that Peter Thiel is content to let YC take the flack for him. He knows he's damaging them; that partners are walking away from YC, and it's down to him.

A decent person would walk away at that point, to save YC and take the heat on themselves.

He doesn't. Which makes it all the more odd that sama will still go to bat for someone he a) disagrees with and b) wouldn't do the same in return.

<comment><USER10> He should support the political ostracism by making it easier for everyone by ostracising himself? What an odd definition you must have of "decent".

<comment><USER13> The political ostracism has happened - people are already distancing themselves from him. It's a given here.

I'm saying he should limit the damage of it to himself, rather than letting his friends be dragged down with him, yes.

By forcing YC to stand with him, he has dragged them into his fight and undone a lot of their previous good work.

<comment><USER10> Surely there are adversaries so fearsome that the noble thing is to cut ties and avoid collateral damage, but a mob of angry partisans on the internet shouldn't be one of them.

To do that would mean giving up on civil political disagreement and sets a terrible precedent.

I don't think any good work is being undone here but perhaps you could say some political capital is being spent defending the free and open exchange of ideas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER194> Irony...advocating discrimination against Trump supporters because you believe they advocate discrimination.

</comment><comment><USER195> Racism, sexism, calling the election "rigged", saying you are going to prosecute your opponent, accusing them of being on drugs, bragging about sexual assault...

These are not political views. It's just absurdity, and supporting such a person with $1.25 million absolutely makes me question your judgement.

</comment><comment><USER196> now there is no difference between you and the so called trump supporters. You are asking others to take a stand on behalf of your moral values or bunch who share your values. Come to the developing countries who call themselves democracy and you can see it be absued by their supporters who have the very same notion as you. There is no difference between them(some are uneducated) and you(educated).I hope you are one those guys who can be brainwashed easily or there is no difference between you and those who get brainwashed. Either make your system strong or soon a combination of adam sutler(Vendetta movie) and father's mask(Equlibrium movie) or person with veil will screw everyone using the very same system.

</comment><comment><USER90> While I don't agree w/ Marco on all his points, I think Thiel should go.

Trump/Thiel are racists against multiculturalism. This is the life blood of California and the tech sector. I say this as an old white guy.

</comment><comment><USER197> The size of this thread, and the split of opinions, is a clear indication to me that this goes beyond the single decision of "Whether or not keep Thiel on board".

I would like to bring your attention to that bigger issue (sorry if this comment is useless to you in making up your mind about Thiel).

I consider myself a transhumanist, a futurologist, a technologist, that sort of thing. I got into this about 3 years ago. And I've done a lot of thinking/reading on this topic, and I've tried my best to gauge the perception about technology in the eyes of non-techies, especially economists, and politicians.

And my conclusion is that, except for a few, economists and politicians are hopelessly lagging behind the fast pace of socio-economic change. I also predicted that within a matter of years, we're headed for a serious social disruption of an unpredictable nature.

Here is my thesis: 2016 is the beginning of that socially disruptive era. And it's all due to technological progress and automation-driven-unemployment!

If you think it's only about the 2016 US election, and things will settle down within weeks after November 8 election of Clinton, you would be misguided. Of course the election fever will settle down, but not the frustration behind it, which is growing like a frog in a slowly boiling water. I can tell you right now, the 2018 election season would be worse, and 2020 season would be far worse!

Case in point: Have you seen the statistics related to self-driving cars and trucks? Arguably it'll put 3 million truckers out of work. This will happen within a matter of months, not years, not decades. What do you think would happen when all of a sudden 3 million people are without means to put food on their table? Something that would make you forget Trump!

You might ask, we don't have self-driving cars yet why do we have social disruption? Well, self-driving cars is a poster-child of automation. It's something that's easy to understand and relate to. There is a ton of subtle, behind-the-scenes, automation going on, that is indirectly making harder for humans to utilize their skills for making money. Smart-phone and related apps, news article bots, automated warehousing like Amazon Kivy, Uber/Lyft, Airbnb, Etsy, vertical farming, solar and wind power, on, and on, and on. But more importantly:

Social disruption is not a step function but a logistic curve. It's not that we'll have zero disruption until self-driving trucks are available for retail purchasing, and after that we'll have full disruption. Instead, it's a sign of things to come, and we're off the zero-level, and slowly rising up the S-curve of the logistic function.

Please think of this problem in a bigger context. If technologists cannot do this, economists and politicians definitely can't.

</comment><comment><USER198> true tolerance tolerates the intolerant.

</comment><comment><USER199> This exemplifies a disturbing tactic of the left, demonizing anyone who holds differing political views, attempting to turn them into social pariahs, causing them whatever harm they're able to within the law.

I happen to think that Hillary Clinton is a criminal who belongs in federal prison. I think the only reason she's not being prosecuted is that the current administration is corrupt, and views laws as weapons to be used against political opponents rather than a set of rules to be applied equally to all citizens. I am of the opinion that her "foundation" that accepted "donations" from countries that had business before the US State Department while she was running, it, is basically a money-laundering operation for bribes. I believe the woman who accused her husband of viciously and violently raping her in a hotel room was telling the truth, and I think those Democrats who are throwing fits over Trump's crude statements and sketchy allegations of his impropriety are hypocrites, considering the way they defended Bill Clinton and elevated him to the status of Elder Party Statesman after he left office.

And yet I think people should be free to publicly support Hillary Clinton's bid for POTUS without having their livelihoods come under attack.

<comment><USER200> This is exactly why as a former independent I am going with the Republicans this time around. Although I do tend to side with them on more issues, it's the way the Dems conduct themselves that has completely turned me off of them:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY)

<comment><USER201> It's sentiments like this that still give Trump a serious shot at winning, even if more scandals about him are unveiled. I hate both but am voting for Clinton, but can very much understand your position.

The whole "basket of deplorables", virtue signalling, moral superiority thing turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER202> So Trump has a lot of problems, but it looks like he is not corrupt. Hillary, on the other hand, is fully with corruption. I really don't like/agree with YC priorities (I'm not an American, which is even more disturbing to see someone that laughs about killing others country president been endorsed/elected)

<comment><USER203> Are you joking? Trump is _transparently_ corrupt. The Trump Foundation exists to serve as a tax shield, funneling donor money to Trump and his family personally. C.f. the allegations of corruption toward Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, which are laughably indistinct and incomparable. If corruption is what you care about, then Hillary Clinton is _inarguably_ the superior candidate.

<comment><USER204> So stuff against Trump is proven 100% for reals and stuff against Clinton is mere allegations? Hmmmm.

I'm not a Trump supporter by any stretch of the imagination, but I do find it fascinating how easily people manage to rationalize things.

I'm sure there are TONS of folks who would decry a person for being a climate denier who would then perform the exact same mental process to 'overlook' whatever problems exist with the Clintons.

<comment><USER203> > So stuff against Trump is proven 100% for reals and stuff against Clinton is > mere allegations? Hmmmm.

Well there's obviously a spectrum but I think it's absolutely inarguable that Trump's foundation is a tax dodge and that Trump is transparently corrupt; and I think _at worst_ you can say that Clinton made some bad choices, but yes absolutely the allegations against her are without proof.

> I'm sure there are TONS of folks who would decry a person for being a > climate denier who would then perform the exact same mental process to > 'overlook' whatever problems exist with the Clintons.

Of course nobody is overlooking problems, and your attempts at equivocation are transparently concern trolling. But it's pretty inarguable that "whatever problems exist with the Clintons" are speculative and completely incomparable with "whatever problems exist with Trump".

<comment><USER204> > think at worst you can say that Clinton made some bad choices

The Director of the FBI said exactly that, but that there was no malicious intent and thus no crime. Why an investigative body is making a recommendation about charges notwithstanding, when it comes to national secrets, nobody else gets the benefit of the doubt re: mens rea, it's generally interpreted as strict liability. Why did former Secretary Clinton get a seemingly free pass on this one, while members of the rank-and-file military do not? I suspect it's because they're in the rank-and-file.

[http://thehill.com/policy/defense/292064-troops-using- clinto...](http://thehill.com/policy/defense/292064-troops-using-clinton- defense-in-classified-information-cases)

<comment><USER202> I don't understand how Americans don't care about Hillary's lies. (actually, I do, it's called mass media manipulation, but you guys, of all modern societies in the world, should be one of few capable of fighting it).

Hillary Clinton simple says that she made a mistake and nobody asks why did she used a private email server? I think this is a huge trap, but would things go a little better for Trump if he admits that it was all a misunderstanding and he is a reformed man now?

<comment><USER204> It's basically just like Carl Sagan said:

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."

[http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/85171-one-of-the-saddest- les...](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/85171-one-of-the-saddest-lessons-of- history-is-this-if)

EDIT: That said, I don't NECESSARILY believe that the Clintons have absolutely, for sure been up to no good. But I am a little suspicious, given the facts that the FBI found. There's plenty of stuff that they could do to exonerate themselves. I just suspect it won't happen, especially since the FBI has seen fit to say "no bad intent so no crime"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER205> Please, do the right thing, and don't take it down again. [https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/582t9v/y_combinat...](https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/582t9v/y_combinator_censors_marco_arment_for_his_opinion/)

<comment><USER118> This still shouldn't be on HN. I'm not from the US and I am totally fed up with both pro and anti Trump/Clinton propaganda that spews out to cover all of the world, and I don't want to see it here, at least particularly when it's just _" stories about politics, or crime, or sports"_ and particularly not _" evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."_ as the HN guidelines put it.

I'd rather fight for Thiel's right to say and work for his opinion.

<comment><USER206> I'd agree, with a tiny caveat. I couldn't care less about US politics, think neither candidate is likely to change much that affects me or mine, and think the US president's power is vastly overstated.

Where I disagree is that I think the real problem lies in the reactionary posts, like Pao's Medium post and this one. These I think are a very real threat to me and mine.

These ideas - that things that aren't focussed on hacking code together to create businesses, that distract not from adjacent to the topic but from within, these are the problem.

That's the crazy part here to me. Forget the politics, the people reacting to politics and wanting things in the HN sphere to change are (trying?) to have very real impacts on things I care about, and none of that is, AFAICT, in any way shape or form positive.

Trump, Clinton and the US election hasn't helped one person hack together any code, and neither has the post linked to, but only one of them is part of the industry that is directly involved in hacking together any code, and that part, that part is the issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Can't we just drone the guy?" \- Hillary Clinton, on Assange.

<comment><USER207> The basis for this is claimed to be anonymous "State Department sources," by way of a single blog which does nothing but print right-wing hatchet jobs (True Pundit). Considering the lack of credibility in True Pundit's other posts, it would not shock me if the quote was fabricated.

Please do your research before posting unverified quotes as fact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER200> Shame on Democrats: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY)

Also:

> Altman's framing of Thiel's Trump support as a diversity issue isn't just > incorrect — it's a harmful distortion that reveals a deep misunderstanding > of the tech industry's actual diversity issues. (I don't and can't fully > understand our diversity problem, but I at least won't pretend to.)

What on Earth does this even mean? There's something wrong, I can't have a different opinion, but you can't even understand or explain it? Give me a fucking break.

</comment><comment><USER208> "Oh no, someone supports a political agenda different from mine. I'd better bring out the cannons and shame anything even remotely related to this person, because I don't agree with his political views!"

</comment><comment><USER209> Shame on all of you for daring to criticize a person's freedom of speech and participation.

And I'm willing to bet the majority of people posting in this thread are Americans, which makes this whole conversation even more head-shaking for me.

Not a Christian, but "pull the plank from thine own eye" seems to be the most appropriate thing to say to every last one of you here.

<comment><USER210> It is a criticism of fascism, nazism, racism and sexual assault.

</comment></comment><comment><USER211> My observation:

\- most trump supporters hate the corrupted system, the establishment, but they do not generally hate average hillary supporters.

\- most hillary supporters hate trump and trump supporters.

</comment><comment><USER212> No shame on Marcos, Pao, and anyone else taking a this stupid stance against those who disagree with them. Supporting Trump is perfectly fine, as is supporting Clinton. Calling for the heads of those on opposing sides of the isle is what is truly disgraceful and the whole lot of you acting like petulant children are just pathetic and dangerously misguided.

</comment><comment><USER213> Another post about purging Trump supporters from the workplace.

Is it SV that causes people to view the world in black and white?

What a surprise, one of the least inclusive industries on the planet is trying to exclude more people.

</comment><comment><USER214> Wag, fingers, wag, then gawp in wonder at the backfire leading to more trumps.

</comment><comment><USER215> That moment when [https://xkcd.com/1357](https://xkcd.com/1357) gets taken too far and people are afraid of voicing anything but the current, popular, politically correct opinions for fear of losing their careers.

<comment><USER216> honestly, i myself feel like that. i don't voice my general opinion on many threads because there's always a random person that decides that my opinion is a disgrace so it's better to email his employee to let them know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER217> "We shouldn't start purging people for supporting the wrong political candidate. That's not how things are done in this country."

What a crazy idea!

</comment><comment><USER218> I am glad Trump has run, spoken and reached this point.

We each now know and can remember going forward, if we so choose, how all the people we assign respect to acted when it mattered.

(And we should remember the actual meaningful actions with long term $ impact to the actor. Not get guiled by the arguments skillfully couching intent and rationalizing the actions).

</comment><comment><USER219> Tell me one thing YC community: What american politics topics are doing on worldwide tech-focused site?

<comment><USER214> If anything, this is a silicon valley tech site that is so compelling it has a worldwide audience. Not really the same thing.

Plus if you live somewhere in the world, American politics affects you because we have such immense power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER220> No, shame on Marco, barking orders to other people about what politics they should or should not support. If one cannot be a professional and calmly interact with people who have wildly varying opinions, even opinions one finds despicable, one should not be in an industry whose very foundation is diversity of thought.

</comment><comment><USER221> To be charitable, you're full of shit. Does Hillary encourage violence at rallies? Does she stoke resentment at minority outgroups for political gain? Does she threaten to imprison her political opponents? Is she preemptively calling the election fraudulent and encouraging polling place intimidation and violence?

Also you mixed up "kind" and "degree". The difference between them is, in fact, one of kind. Sure, she's a bit of a corporatist shill, but that's par for the course for most presidents since the 1900s. The case against her is built from years of strident exaggerations and lies, amplified by misogyny. She's a completely normal, if less than thrilling, politician. The case against Trump is sufficiently built on things he's said in public in just the last few months alone. He's an American proto-fascist.

<comment><USER222> > _To be charitable, you 're full of shit._

You can't comment like this on HN. Please don't do it again, regardless of how wrong someone is. Commenters here should post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12735736](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12735736) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER223> In the 21th century educated techies should understand that Trump is not a mere candidate, but a product of a set of image makers, speech writers, psychologists and whole bunch of deceptive and manipulative techniques applied.

Basically, it is a well crafted frontman (same as in a rock band) to appeal to less educated majority. This explains all the sexism and masculinity, bravado and jokes - all this reflects what the majority of any given population would appreciate, but not necessarily publicly approve.

In a society which is famous for its well crafted, researched in psychology departments, deceptive advertising techniques, all what Trump does should be familiar and transparent - the same primitive manipulations everyone is using to sell the crap to each other.

Trump is a product of applied psychology, designed to obtain majority of votes. Do not even try to fancy that hipsters, vegans, etc. leave alone the ivvy league students, constitutes the majority of US population.

So, some people take their chances, betting on that this primitive but sound strategy could win. Consider this as just a form of a risky investment.

</comment><comment><USER224> If you vote for Trump, you are supporting a racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-LGBTQ fascist. You are in fact voting against the very principles of equality, liberty and diversity that this country was founded on. As such voting for -- much less, actually supporting Drumpf -- means you are endorsing violence against huge portions of the American public (e.g., sexual assault against women, imprisonment of Muslims, Latinos, etc).

Therefore, not only is there nothing wrong with forward looking organizations for excluding people as dispicable as Trump supporters, they have a responsibility to do so for the safety of their members who happen to be LGBTQ, Muslim, female, People of Color and basically anyone else who isn't a straight white male.

It's 2016, about damn time we send a message to the bigots that their hate is no longer okay and we're not going to tolerate it anymore. End. Of. Discussion.

<comment><USER225> Actually, it's about ethics in wielding minorities as a club to smite heretics.

<comment><USER226> Diversity is the new Deus Vault.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER227> I understand Marco's point and I agree with him but I must say for once I find his post not very well written.

</comment><comment><USER228> People here defending the donation need to remember that Brandon Eich was let go for much less.

<comment><USER10> Which was also regrettable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER229> I would just state that while we have political freedom and free speech in the USA..YC should not be ENDORSING those political forces who in their direct actions with a consistent basis regale in Sexism, Predatory Sexual behavior, Racism, Hate of Gays,etc.

Its time for YC take a stand..no try to sit on a fence

</comment><comment><USER37> Just one quick comment, because these discussions always go there: This is not about Hillary. Whatever the family Clinton did or not did, it doesn't matter. This is about someone who supports Donald Trump in a significant way, and the person Donald Trump and his potential negative impact on our society.

<comment><USER33> Lots of people think Trump is a positive impact on our society. Why not let the people decide in vote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER230> When you have a "hot-head numb-nut" and a "truly nasty shyster" running for President, who do you vote for?

I'll tell you. You say, "To hell with all that!", and vote for the [goofball]([https://www.johnsonweld.com/](https://www.johnsonweld.com/)).

</comment><comment><USER231> Thought experiment: Would it be any different if we replaced Donald Trump with Hitler?

Should a company dissociate with a business partner/board member/investor because he supported an extremist's political campaign?

<comment><USER232> Comparing political candidates to Hitler is a rather lazy thought experiment.

<comment><USER73> It's not lazy. It's showing the extreme (clearly unacceptable) end of the spectrum to ask someone how they decide where to draw the line. What would Trump have to do before supporting him is unacceptable to YC?

But if you really don't want to use Hitler, try Rodrigo Duterte or Silvio Berlusconi instead. They actually share a lot of similarities to Trump.

<comment><USER232> "It's showing the extreme (clearly unacceptable) end of the spectrum to ask someone how they decide where to draw the line."

That's actually very lazy. It's shifting the burden of "drawing the line" on the other side.

It's the "well, why don't we just kill toddlers as well? Where do you draw the line?" in an abortion argument. It's the "why don't we just give 12 year old's automatic assault weapons" or "why don't we disarm the police and military as well" in a gun control debate. It's the "So why don't we just tax corporations 100% of their income" in a corporate tax debate.

<comment><USER233> Very true. The line is important.

Trump has started heavily implying that the election will be rigged, Russia- style. He repeats Info Wars propaganda sillyness. He's come out to say that the elections will be _stolen_ from true Americans by illegal immigrants. He's called for beating protestors.

Some of his positions are more a question of form rather than function compared to the political mainstream. His comments on muslims immigrating into the country are not far from the Republican Party mainstream, unfortunately.

But beyond his policies, he has been openly hostile to the concept of functioning democracy. There's a lazy comparison to be made to Hitler, but that's because Hitler also subverted the system through a cult of personality.

I know some people oppose him for his policies, but it feels internally inconsistent (you'd have to boycott most Republican supporters). But surely using strategies to undermine the legitimacy of the election results (that in a different country would be an obvious lead-up to a coup d'etat) is something we can all get behind as a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER234> HN admins - if you're going to shut this one down as well, could I appeal to you to at least give a reasoning why? Killing posts like these without for example dang providing at least a quick reasoning why leaves a bad taste in my mouth...

<comment><USER118> Not an admin, just a user, but read [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

 _Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they 're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon._

There's nothing very interesting in vilifying Thiel.

<comment><USER235> On the contrary, the fact that we had, and continue to have numerous threads, and _thousands_ of comments means it is _very_ interesting to the community.

<comment><USER236> The fact that it keeps getting flagged to death shows something too.

<comment><USER215> Politics creep into every news aggregate out there. I kind of like the idea of Hacker News not being one of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER237> I think a lot of people are missing a key point here. This isn't about stopping a candidate you disagree with, or even about stopping a candidate that you think would be bad for the US. It's about making Y Combinator and the software industry as effective and good-for-the-world as possible.

Even if throwing Thiel out would actually help Trump's candidacy, they should do it.

There's an interesting debate about whether you think Trump's policies are a good idea, and how much you care about him being elected, but that's a sideshow. Thiel represents Y Combinator, like it or not. How he's perceived affects how Y Combinator is perceived, and how the industry (SV especially) are perceived by the rest of the world. Currently, he's actively and very publicly giving millions of dollars to a candidate espousing violence, sexism, racism and sexual assault.

By supporting Thiel, Y Combinator is supporting somebody espousing violence, sexism, racism and sexual assault. It doesn't matter if they're a presidential candidate or not, or what it does to the election results. Encouraging and supporting these _moral_ positions is horrific, bad for everybody, and just practically bad for business. When your public face becomes the face of hate speech, you have a practical business problem, and you need to solve it.

You would fire a public face of your company if they publicly wrote a post about how they liked to sexually assault people. You would fire a public face of your company if they publicly donated millions of dollars to an organisation encouraging sexual assault. Why is it different if the organisation they're supporting is running for president?

It's not about Trump's policies, and it's not about whether or not it plays into Trump's hands: if a major face of your business is actively visibly supporting abuse, discrimination and violence and you do nothing, then your business is supporting abuse, discrimination and violence. You're going to give you and your industry a bad name and discourage minorities of all kinds from ever working with you, along with anybody else who finds your morals repugnant.

Supporting Thiel while he actively defend and encourages racism, sexism and violence in the name of "free speech" doesn't make the world better; it makes it far far worse.

<comment><USER238> The thing is, "good for the world" is a subjective notion.

In my studies of philosophy I am yet to find any system of ethics that provides an objective and universal definition of right and wrong - if you find one, please let me know.

Until then, we are all dealing with subjective opinions - it's just that some opinions are more popular than others. In democracy the most popular opinion wins, but this does not imply that an opinion is objectively "right" (as we know from history).

Hence, I find this recent trend where people classify other people's beliefs as "objectively wrong" \- with no consideration for the subjectivity of their own beliefs - to be deeply troubling. Such behaviour is a departure from reason; only dogma remains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER239> It would definitely be wrong to fire or sever all ties with someone for supporting, say, George W. Bush. On the other hand, it would be appropriate to do so if said person supported Hitler.

So the question is where you put Donald Trump on that spectrum. Personally, I think he's much closer to an authoritarian populist than to a regular politician.

You may disagree with Trump's placement on that axis, but I find it very strange to see so many people in this thread arguing that punishing someone for their political position is always wrong, no matter how vile or dangerous said political position is.

</comment><comment><USER240> Really naive to think that supporting a political party and supporting Trump are the same. Of course, Peter Thiel does not support the BS that Trump says. It would be a huge contradiction coming from the same man that took down Gawker. If there was no single reason why people are supporting Trump, it is American's version of Brexit, by voting Trump people are protesting the massive economic chaos in the USA. They aren't hoping Trump will fix it. The opposite, they are hoping Trump will fail miserably, which will effectively hit the reset button on the American economy.

</comment><comment><USER70> Another way to look at this is to apply a version of Jeff Bezos's Regret Minimization Framework: project yourself decades into the future and read about yourself in a history book.

If you truly believe Trump is an unprecedented threat to democracy in the league of Stalin, how would you feel telling your children that "it was just business" when you kept on a partner who was part of his campaign apparatus?

I don't think IBM is particularly proud of their management during the 1930's. No one knows or _cares_ about the personal views of the people behind those decisions, just what they led IBM to do.

<comment><USER241> Would one feel particularly good telling one's children that one joined in a rabid witch hunt driving people from their employment (Eich) and business associations (Thiel)?

<comment><USER70> I'll feel great telling my kids I encouraged people in my industry to stand up to a billionaire mouthpiece and financier of a prominent white nationalist trying to bring fascism to the United States.

In fact, I'd be ashamed to say I didn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER242> Peter Thiel's financial support for Trump's campaign, as well as Trump's campaign of hatred, racism, xenophobia and misogyny, are perfect examples of the Overton window sliding into insanity.

The next Trump may be slightly more moderate. He may accept that women may have some of the same rights as men. He may accept the fact some foreigners should be afforded some civil liberties. He may even accept access to healthcare is a good thing and that Islam is not inherently evil.

And, next to Trump, he'll be pictured as a moderate.

I am sorry if I look intolerant of diversity, but this cannot be tolerated. We cannot allow the subversion of democracies.

</comment><comment><USER243> >If Peter said some of the things Trump says himself, he would no longer be part of Y Combinator.

If it is only reasonable to spouse Thiel's supports Trump is in every particular. Not just the least damaging but also the most. So this not only includes the more palatable anti globalization stance but also race baiting and, hostility towards women as well as a fiercely anti democracy, anti free press platform.

I assume much of that is exactly opposed to ycombinator's higher mission.

Thiel's association with ycombinator is not one of employee to employer, it is voluntary association of colleagues for a common goal, presumably with goals higher than just monetary. Going forward, continuing with Thiel will not only make any claim to those nobler goals _look_ disingenuous they likely will in fact _be_ undermined.

</comment><comment><USER244> It's worth sharing this again:

[http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

For what it's worth, Thiel seems to have the view that Trump isn't actually going to do horrible things, and will invest in infrastructure and American businesses.

This seems deluded for the same reasons that some American liberals were about Stalin, and purging him for his authentic and not apparently horrible beliefs would be the same mistakes that we did during the McCarthy era.

</comment><comment><USER245> There's also the entire argument that Thiel doesn't really support Donald Trump, and that this donation is more of a strategic move that is coherent with increasing Ted Cruz's chances of election in 2020. Cruz got as close to a public denouncement of Trump as possible, and he will probably need the support of many of his voters (who knows if they'll even remember, doubt it) to be able to secure a victory. Thiel could perhaps be the trump card necessary as support, as he double counts as both a gay man and someone who remained "loyal" to Trump. I think that Thiel's opinions on how the world should look are more in line with Cruz's, and he himself has called Cruz "very smart". I don't know a lot about politics or Peter Thiel, but to think that a former chess champion and fairly renowned silicon Valley figurehead legitimately supports Trump is a little outlandish. The odds of there being an ulterior motive are far greater than the opposite. Not to mention that he probably saw all the negative PR coming, as well as the resulting dissociations. He probably believes it was all worth it.

<comment><USER246> He appeared on stage, and gave a speech in support of Trump at the GOP National Convention in Cleveland, back in July.

</comment></comment><comment><USER247> Nearly all of our bosses, owners, authorities vote and support in various ways, most you probably don't like. Thiel is a funder, how often have you worked for people/financing that had differing opinions? All the time...

The real problem is that the 2 party system has successfully divided us and put us on teams warring one another over silly things like politicians (and non issues like sex lives over real issues like healthcare, education, prosperity, opportunity, security -- not the war on terror kind, more like the bridges aren't going to fall kind).

Most of what we want are the same things, but we'll never get anywhere hating on each other based on our political team that is essentially the same party once in action. I wish we would go back to the old way of keeping your vote and opinion closer to your chest and surprising the two political parties so they actually need to court the vote again.

I can't wait til the election season is over, it is always a very harsh/rigid time in the US when they are on, people seeing others as lower who aren't in their own party. Disconnect from it and everyone be independent. Don't do work for politicians and blindly support anyone or any party, make them do work for us.

</comment><comment><USER248> Given Thiel's long history of crazy an immoral utterances and behavior, why pick out his support of Trump as the "line in the sand"? It's practically _normal_ compared to his other activities, and protected by law to boot. Compared to:

* Suing a news publication (Gawker) out of business for criticizing him * Funding research into vampirism (stealing young people's blood so he can live longer) * Paying to design an actual John Gault Island * Funding an initiative to split California into 6 states * Saying that women shouldn't be allowed to vote

There are _tons_ of reasons why YC should disassociate form Thiel, but his donation to the Trump campaign has got to be the least of them.

</comment><comment><USER13> Man alive this thread. When SV wonders why it has a diversity problem, just point 'em here.

Where were all you Free Speech zealots when Thiel destroyed Gawker?

Where were all you Political Choices Are Sacred crew when SOPA was being proposed?

Where were all you "protect rich bigots" stans when it was Brendan Eich? Oh wait, that's right, you were on the wrong side there too, my bad.

As for you "I guess there's a 'wrong side' these days of things you just can't say" newcomers: surprise, there have _always_ been unacceptable opinions, such as supporting fascism. It's just that a mainstream party accidentally chose as its candidate someone who holds and expresses those opinions. That doesn't give him, you, or Thiel, a pass.

<comment><USER226> Ok how about this: Anyone who supports Hillary is on the wrong side of History and holds views so vile no American should hold them. I can advocate for Pao to be fired now right?

<comment><USER249> Sure, you can advocate for it. Whether or not you believe that, in fact. People may question both your preferred action and the basis on which you advocate for it, however.

<comment><USER226> Wouldn't it be easier just to agree to no witch hunts than to hope the winds of public opinion never make us the witch?

<comment><USER13> But what about if you actually do have a "witch" on your hands? Like, say, an actual fascist?

I think one of the conflicts here is arising because some people see Trump as an actual fascist, and are advocating the kinds of actions that are required to deal with that. Others see him as just another politician, no worse than Clinton, and therefore see the actions of the other lot as excessive and unwarranted.

Sama, however, is trying to have his cake and eat it. He says he believes Trump is a threat to the republic but eh, if people want to support that it's up to them.

Which is arguably open-minded tolerance of intolerance, but also the sort of "so open your brain falls out" liberalism that (ironically) Trump fans hate so much.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>