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Comment on Ask HN: Can you be openly politically right-leaning in tech in North America?parent

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Unfortunately, right leaning in the US has come to include views that run counter to science, diversity/inclusivity, and human rights for all (right to vote, right to choose). Are these views welcome in tech companies? Not generally.

Unfortunately, right leaning in the US has come to include views that run counter to science, diversity/inclusivity, and human rights for all (right to vote, right to choose). Are these views welcome in tech companies? Not generally.

That kind of phrasing is pretty obnoxious. You might as well as "unfortunately, [to be] right leaning in the US means hating puppies and disliking fun." It's needlessly provoking and lumps people into a lazy stereotype.

It takes a very selective reading of the facts to claim conservatives are any more anti science than liberals, in the US. Whatever hot button issue there is, there will be people who deny whatever the scientific consensus is if it doesn't suit their beliefs. The question is, who would you rather have running things? The guy that thought humans were riding dinosaurs 5000 years ago, or the guy who thinks paying 40 million people not to work is going to boost the economy?

The diversity/inclusivity stuff has gone totally bonkers. It's racist now to want to not judge people by their skin color and instead use merit. I don't see how liberals can abide this.. some don't but most are just scared of being yelled at by a twitter mob.

And human rights--with respect to voting one side wants more verification of eligibility and one side does not, no one holds the view that some people shouldnt be allowed to vote. And conservatives think abortion is a human rights issue too, just for the baby (or fetus or clump of cells or whatever you want to call it). We can play word games all we want about it but there is a real moral question here about what constitutes a human.

The voting rights point is interesting. My understanding is that one side wants more verification of eligibility, but the other side is worried that if the approach to verification is too onerous that voter turnout will decrease.

There's seemingly a parallel to the gun control discussion, where again one side wants more verification of eligibility, but the other side is worried that the verification--if applied over-zealously--will be too restrictive.

The two sides are swapped on the two issues, but each time they disagree not necessarily because their fundamental opinions are different, but because they do not trust the other side to be reasonable.

Neither side is really arguing in good faith - they both just want more votes for their party.

I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with voter ID laws. Many democracies in Europe have them. In America they might be unnecessary overkill, but if they increase faith in the electoral process, that's awesome.

The actual issue is that we don't have federal ID cards, and there are a ton of citizens without any form of government-issued photo ID at all. If you're very poor, the idea of paying for a driver's license might seem ridiculous because you have neither a car nor a bank account.

Any good-faith proposal to enforce voter IDs would have to pair it with making IDs simple and free to get for every registered voter, otherwise it can be justly criticized as antidemocratic.

As far as I know state IDs are free. Well at least here they are anyway. They aren't drivers licenses though, you definitely can't drive with one. You did have to go wait at the DMV, that was before Covid. I would hope they would've modernized the process now.

Is "verification of eligibility" really what the gun-control people want? Aren't they trying to argue that even people who can 100% prove that their record is squeaky-clean still shouldn't be allowed to own guns?

Well it’s because historically in the US, voting laws have been used to make sure the “wrong sorts” of people didn’t get a chance to vote.

Any of your four opinions is enough to get you fired if espoused publicly at any FAANG today.

The guy that thought humans were riding dinosaurs 5000 years ago, or the guy who thinks paying 40 million people not to work is going to boost the economy?

I'll say that the number of people who truly believe that first opinion is vanishingly small and I'm not awfully worried about it impacting their current policy making.

Your opinion on abortion is spot-on.

not to paint a sad story but i’ve never had anyone who preached inclusivity ever try and include me in on something, so i’ve always wondered what that word is supposed to mean.

i generally believe that there’s a huge amount of gaslighting going on in the media. misinformation can influence the media to attack a certain group over another as well.

this doesn’t have to be overt. there are other forms of hate and prejudice going on indirectly and not just from a right leaning source as well. some don’t even understand the damage they are causing by trying to “fix” the situation. in a lot of ways it’s making the system worse for everyone.

there’s a saying, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

anyways, full disclosure, i’ve lived in many states where you could vote outside of your registered political party. so i have voted outside of my party if i felt the candidate was a good fit for the job. i think we really ought to consider policy awareness programs, like way before an election.

so we aren’t just bombarded with political affiliated party bias propaganda. how much has the political adverts inspired extremism? then later back paddled after an election is over?

or worse, political gaslighting seems to be the norm these days, it’s a very deceptive practice, and is straight up toxic

Left-leaning also "includes" such views - consider tankies, for example. The more meaningful question is what views are genuinely representative.

Had to look up “tankie”. Shows how incoherent the “right” vs “left” can be in terms of positions they take.

Those views aren't welcome in most companies, period. Hence the op's rather important question "what views". Just because the hateful and anti-science groups have found a home in the modern day GOP doesn't mean that a given conservative shares them, even when holding their nose to vote.

I don't think it is even possible for a rational person to be anti-science. By definition you are engaged with a scientific proposition or prediction by focusing on it and disagreeing with the veracity of claims.

When people say so and so are anti-science they appear desperately wishing to smear another as ignorant or irrational and themselves as smart and rational. But a pro-scientific accusation would involve the exact irrefutable point the other is being irrational on. They don't do accurate accusations well because that would be to suppose poor use of rational faculty when all that can be proven is none was detected by the accuser, which might too readily expose their flawed non-scientific approach to accusations. I posit that these smears are based on dogma and only a symptom of one's unwillingness to engage in tense moral debate with cordiality.

I think this is pretty much on the mark. The modern Republican Party has managed to carve itself a niche as a pretty hate-fueled / senseless place.

The issue is that “holding your nose to vote” is taking a stance: somebody who votes for a candidate who is sexist because they like their fiscal policy is saying “I’m OK being led by this person because I value their fiscal policy more than their character”. And in the modern era, we’re seeing increasing signs that society at large has taken notice of that distinction.

Oh, I don't mean to excuse it, and you kind of are asking for it if you say who you voted for, but just espousing a conservative viewpoint, provided it's not a viewpoint that has been given home amongst the conservative party despite being repugnant, isn't going to get you flack. "I wish taxes were lower" isn't going to lose you a job

It’s a lot harder to find candidates to vote for than to vote against. You may find fiscal policy more important than dress codes. Or environmental policy more important than school prayer.

run counter to science, diversity/inclusivity, and human rights

I see it has "healthy scepticism".

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