jkelsey

That sounds horrifying.

I'm going to forward this article to my gym. Cable news really isn't news anyways. CNN is entertainment masquerading as news, and Fox is just a 24-7 confirmation bias funnel for conservatives.

This shouldn't be downvoted. We don't need to make up things about people to attack terrible policy and unethical behavior.

I agree with the premise but the problem is developing apps in any other ecosystem decreases your overall audience. You're either in the corporate world with their walled gardens, or in the FLOSS world where there's all sort of rough edges and things don't work as smoothly (and I say that with nothing but respect and admiration for all the well-meaning hard work from folks that's gone into both ecosystems, but it's the stark reality of matter).

The web is as close as we've gotten to making tech as user friendly and accessible. I bet Mr. Hearn has a bunch of technical proposals lined up for part 2, but how we cross all the factionalism, corporate or idealogical, that's formed in the software community at large since the birth of the web?

Perhaps nihilism was too strong a accusation, but I still fear your position is leaving a loop hole open for nazis. Your case for logic and rationality reads like the status quo should be left alone, which in our current circumstances, tends to benefit whites (thus my remark). Groupthink may be groupthink, but you know how we combat that – we fund public education. We don't need to let nazis to empower themselves to guard against groupthink.

I must comment on this:

> When your "activism" starts depending on the magnitude of horribleness of the enemy for its justification, this is a historical sign that something is out of kilter.

To what activism are you referring to? My activism would be related to moving closer to a society where the starting floor hasn't fallen out for others based on class, race, and gender. Nazism, you know, kinda gets in the way of that.

> If Free Speech is suppressed through societal pressure, it's just as bad as the government doing it.

You're confusing the market of free ideas with speech. Governments have militaries and police forces. Societies have public opinion. Are you suggesting that societies shouldn't have the ability to guide themselves by rejecting speech that is harmful to itself (i.e. racist/sexist dogma perpetuated by a majority that wants to get rid of its minorities)?

Honestly, this all sounds like nihilism which I know is all the currently all the rage to wealthy and white Silicon Valley, but I'm sure your perspective will be altered if you should ever be unfortunate to have nazis start targeting you.

Here we go with another nazi attempt to lecture us on civil liberties. If they had more political power (and I shudder at the notion), they would be the first ones to clamp down on speech and free expression (it's kinda their thing).

We have more pressing free speech matters at hand right now with authoritarian states and corporate monopolies. Nazis don't get a free ride on the hard work being done just so they can turn the gun around on us when they have power. We recognize racism and sexism for what it is, and don't let it distract us from building a better society for us all.

Do we have to reference the xkcd comic again?

Interesting. Could you elaborate?

What do you think the motivation for the Google memo was, exactly?

It's satire.

Hating? No. But certainly disappointed and disillusioned.

With ethno-supremacist folks like Bannon and Miller having such high-level spots in the administration, and their executive orders targeting legal residents and immigrants based on nothing other than xenophobic and racist world-vews, folks like Elon can't expect not to get mud on their reputation when they help legitimatize the Trump administration's actions.

This is a good point, however...

> The tech world likes to build these epic hagiographies of people who never asked for them

This is not true. These people, by the very nature of their positions as chiefs of well-known organizations, have to maintain near untarnished super-human public perceptions (at least to the people that support their organization/company/ideals). They ask for it by accepting the position in the first place. You don't think Elon has a PR team?

It's good advice to not let one's self to become enchanted with these sort of figures, but don't act surprised when other people fall for it. All those people wouldn't have their jobs if it wasn't effective.

It does make sense. Y Combinator has a relationship with Thiel. He's been declared as a partner many times in the past; now they're saying he's not. That's why I'm asking the rhetorical question. I'm afraid you're taking the passage quoted here and removing all other context.