
What People Think You Can’t Say in Silicon Valley - backpropaganda
https://medium.com/@jasoncrawford/what-people-think-you-cant-say-in-silicon-valley-a6d04f632a00
======
stared
My impression is that it is not only about topics, but also _perceived_
intentions (and if you step, however unintentionally, on a trigger (of a
landmine)).

I wrote Dating for Nerds: Gender differences
([http://p.migdal.pl/2017/09/30/dating-for-nerds-gender-
differ...](http://p.migdal.pl/2017/09/30/dating-for-nerds-gender-
differences.html)) and got no backlash (much to my surprise, though).

From my experience nerds (and aspies in particular) talk mostly to exchange
information (learn, share). Same questions are being understood by
neurotypicals as expressing intentions, in a covert way.

Nerd: I read that X, on the average, are less interested in tech.

A non-nerd reads it as: I want to kick out all X from tech. / I consider X
inferior.

A non-nerd disagrees with the perceived intention and fights back, while a
nerd perceives it as immunity to facts and unwillingness for a discussion.

That said:

\- not all nerds are well-intentioned and open-minded

\- workplace is not a place for all possible talks (or other social
activities); if it makes people feel bad, excluded or less productive - it may
be an argument to keep such discussions outside of the workplace; in
particular, workplace is not an evolutionary biology discussion club

And BTW, from "Interpersonal Traits of Aspies Placed in Context":
[https://gist.github.com/stared/00ce50e95f9bcecc8965feb04650c...](https://gist.github.com/stared/00ce50e95f9bcecc8965feb04650c19d)
see "Not Recognizing 'Yellow Light' Conditions" and even more: "Doesn't
Apologize Readily".

~~~
insickness
"A non-nerd reads it as: I want to kick out all X from tech. / I consider X
inferior."

I was out on an internet date with Scandinavian woman a few years ago. She was
some type of sociological researcher, which interested me. I told her that
part of the discrepancy in representation between genders in tech could be
biologically oriented and she immediately said, "I don't want to hear
arguments from biology!" She said it with the same tone and conviction you'd
label someone a racist.

It's as if once we allow these facts into the argument, it means we can say
the fight for gender equality is finished, that whenever equality exists, we
can all throw our hands up in the air and say, "It's biology!" I can see the
danger but at the same time, the alternative--denying reality--is far more
insidious.

~~~
tarsinge
I can of understand her reaction (I would have had the same) and for me it’s
in fact not very dangerous:

\- to my knowledge it’s impossible to separate biology and culture with the
data we have

\- some discriminations were and are made by wrongfully attributing it to
biological traits

\- since it’s hard or impossible to separate things a lot of people (myself
included) adopt « it’s not biology it’s culture » by default because we think
if we are wrong it causes less harm and is less dangerous than falsely
attributing something to biology, and if it’s right then it helps the society
progress.

I understand closing the debate is frustrating for the scientifically minded
and rationale people, but my opinion is that it’s not a bad heuristic for
society as a whole at least until we make progress. But obviously the debate
can happen in the right context, but I find it dangerous to introduce it in
the actual climate of crtitical thinking we are in

~~~
korax
This leaves me wondering:

What do you consider to be the right context for public debates about these
thorny issues?

What besides communicating with each other about those issues will move us
forward?

I don't think they will go away by themselves and I agree that some cannot be
resolved, but then we should politely agree to disagree, after having
explained our reasoning for each other's viewpoints, no?

Disclaimer: I work in this space and we get this reaction quite often, so I am
happy to read your thoughts on this.

~~~
tarsinge
It depends of the issues we are talking of.

What I'm saying is that introducing biology at this point in the debate, by
looking if the inequality is "natural" because phenotype A or chromosome B
gives you some edge or not in science or other discipline, is kind of
irrelevant given the weight of culture in our societies.

I find it even dangerous because I don't think a lot of people are ready to
understand the subtleties of a shift in a normal distribution (if one is
present), and it'll just give them a wrong/misused "scientific" evidence for
reinforcing their prejudices. Because I can't teach critical thinking in
minutes I now resort to "it's always cultural" and try to move the debate
forward to the (IMHO) main causes.

(not a native english speaker so sorry if I missed your point)

~~~
insickness
You're saying you want to keep science out of the 'debate.' That's not a
debate. That's religion. You refuse to allow scientific evidence into the
discussion because you don't trust people with that knowledge. We can't
discuss science is what you're saying. We're supposed to keep our heads in the
sand and pretend that genetics don't exist to support your agenda. No thank
you.

~~~
tarsinge
I’m not saying I want to keep science out of the debate, I’m saying with our
current state of knowledge there is no evidence to help conclude anything and
tell things apart between biology and culture in complex high level chain of
decisions like choosing a career path.

We can’t say “biology=true science!” and try to shoehorn it in the debate no
matter what, this, is unscientific.

Yes, given that we don’t know, assuming it’s always culture to help society
progress (and implicitly saying society needs a change) is a political and
philosophical opinion, and on this we can disagree, but don’t invoke religion
vs science to create a false dichotomy and paint me on the irrational side.

------
sddfd
I read through the list.

My only comment is that if you cannot discuss an idea then the idea cannot
evolve, and you probably won't change your mind.

Maybe the problem is not oppression of ideas, but the lack of a discussion
culture which can tolerate a wider spectrum of ideas for the sake of debunking
some of them.

~~~
Aloha
I think this is key.

In the south (and other places) you're more apt to spot people who have deep
bias against people for intrinsic things - in the North (including CA, and
Northwest) those ideas are so completely unacceptable, that those people never
get called out on them.

~~~
aaron-lebo
How did you write that without realizing how oxymoronic it is? Were you trying
to be an example of: "people who have deep bias against people for intrinsic
things"?

Besides your suggestion that prejudice doesn't exist in the north (lol),
you're writing from the Pacific Northwest, one of the least diverse places in
the country. Oregon is 83% white; Texas hasn't been that white since 1970,
currently 45% non-Hispanic white. Washington state is 72% non-Hispanic. We
deal with a diverse culture every day, most of us aren't racist and ignorant.

Why did you say that?

~~~
wwweston
The assertion seems to be that racism -- perhaps even a specific manifestation
of racism -- is more prevalent in the south than in other areas of the
country. Not that _everyone in the south is racist_ , or that everyone in the
north isn't.

Perhaps you would like it if even this more carefully worded thing was
something people didn't say. If so, it'd probably be interesting to unpack
why.

Also, I'm not sure that geographic location counts as an intrinsic trait. And
no matter how diverse your circle of association is, beware of assuming
they're representative of what you'd see in a geographic cross section. Based
on my survey of my Republican acquaintances in my home state, I would have
assumed that Trump wouldn't have won the primary there.

~~~
aaron-lebo
I'm not averse to the discussion, but it was not carefully worded, by any
means.

------
cowpig
It's funny, I don't see it on the list but by far the biggest taboo in SV in
my experience is talking about things going badly. You're doing great, killing
it even, or you should keep it to yourself.

~~~
malmsteen
I don't know if it's really specific to startup. In life in general no one
cares about you and people tend to avoid you if it's going badly (except very
close friends).

~~~
cowpig
Well, I grew up in NYC where sarcasm and cynicism reign supreme. SV culture is
really jarring.

------
to_bpr
SV has championed a super toxic, toe-the-liberal-line-question-nothing
atmosphere in the workplace for years now. The damage is done.

You'd have to be a total fool to bring up any of the non-left-wing, yet
totally valid comments on that post in a tech workplace in 2017.

~~~
gaius
Here's how it works in London: a right-wing racist will call you a racist
epithet to your face. A left-wing racist will talk a lot about diversity but
work behind the scenes to ethnically cleanse your neighbourhood (aka
"gentrification").

------
aestetix
What I read about the current climate in the US reminds me a lot of how things
were in the months after 9/11\. While I don't have unbiased data like in the
link, I can share a personal anecdote:

In the months after 9/11, if you spoke up and said you didn't agree with US
foreign policy (invading Afghanistan) or that you didn't approve of Bush and
wanted him to resign, you got blacklisted.

I had a friend, every house in his neighborhood had an American flag except
for his, because his dad was an introverted engineer and uninterested in
politics. The absence of the flag was obvious, and after a few nights of
things like eggs on the door, flaming dog shit, and finally a dead animal left
on the door mat, he put up an American flag and all the drama went away.

~~~
briandear
Try putting up a Ted Cruz sign in Mountain View.

~~~
paloaltokid
That’d be kinda silly since Ted Cruz is a Texas senator. But if you mean for
President, probably you’d take some heat.

------
olavk
As someone living far away from SV, this is fascinating reading. But I think
the survey could be more precise about what "can't say" really means. Will you
get literally ostracized for holding the viewpoint in private or on a blog, or
will you get fired for bringing it up in the workplace?

I personally believe some viewpoints really _are_ inappropriate to bring up in
a professional working environment. If I genuinely believe read-headed people
have a brain structure which makes them inferior developers, I don't think I
should bring this issue up during a meeting. Sure, my red-headed coworkers
have the option of challenging my viewpoints and perhaps a fruitful discussion
will follow - where I will convince them with rational arguments and evidence
that my viewpoint is correct. But I think it is fair if said red-headed
colleagues would prefer not to have the discussion at all.

I notice the top taboo subjects are diversity, racism, sexism etc - exactly
subjects where you can indirectly question a colleagues competence.

~~~
rectang
> _Will you get literally ostracized for holding the viewpoint in private or
> on a blog_

Yes, that can happen. If you argue on your blog that red-headed people are
inherently inferior developers and it gets back to your colleagues, there will
be people who treat you differently.

~~~
olavk
Oh certainly, but that does not necessarily mean you "can't say" such things.
I would definitely treat a colleague differently if I discover they write a
blog arguing in favor of Hungarian Notation. Of course people will judge your
character. But if such a blog post would get you fired then it would be fair
to say you "can't say" it.

As an example, Peter Thiel (if I remember correctly) criticized women having
the vote. Certainly a controversial viewpoint, but not controversial enough to
get him ostracized. But his support for Trump _did_ get him ostracized to some
extent. I think this shows the difference between what is just controversial
and what is considered unacceptable in SV.

------
EmilStenstrom
There's a big difference between ideas that weaken minorities, and ideas that
weaken majorities, because you get blowback for different reasons. When you
attack minorities the people that get upset with you, are people that are
worried that weakening an already weak group is a bad thing. When you attack
majorities however, you get blowback from the people that are afraid to lose
their power.

I agree that there are problems with not allowing people to express all kinds
of ideas, but there's a big difference in the two types above: You should be
more careful when attacking the already weak, for their position is already
brittle.

~~~
kazagistar
(I'm going to assume from context you don't mean minority as in population,
but rather power dynamics as you talk about for the rest of the post.) The
problem distinguishing stronger and weaker sides is that there isn't an
objective metric that both sides can agree on. The reason gender issues are so
prevalent on this list and are such a hot topic is exactly because it is a
debate about which side is weaker, about which measures of power are valid and
invalid, and so on.

~~~
EmilStenstrom
That there isn't a metric is a really interesting problem. I think most
debates should start with talking about metrics.

For instance, when talking about skewed power dynamics when it come to gender,
you could look at the number of men vs. women in management positions. Being
able to fire someone is a form of power. Or you could look at raw salaries,
and say that money is a form of power. And so on. Would make many discussions
a lot clearer.

------
geff82
Interesting thing is about gender and technology jobs. In „evil“ Iran, about
50% of students of computer science are women. Being a female software
developer is common. Cousin of my wife is a programmer, another female friend
of the family is a IBM mainframe programmer(now retired), my wife is an
engineer with interest in computer science. So its not all about „brain
structures“, it is about society. When Iran can do it, how will we westeners?

~~~
pas
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-
exagger...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-
differences/) \- in particular see Iran vs Sweden, how more egalitarian
cultures show more gender difference for occupations

~~~
geff82
Thanks, very interesting.

------
vxNsr
So basically people with opinions on both extremes feel marginalized and
unheard. I guess that's maybe a message to consider a more nuanced position.

~~~
spiznnx
I want Silicon Valley to be a place where you can publicly hold extreme views
and not be a huge social liability to anyone you associate with (employer,
friends).

~~~
gjjrfcbugxbhf
The thing is you are free to hold and expose extreme views - and I strongly
support your right to do so and not to be subject to persecution from the
state for doing so. However I also have the right to not associate with you if
I think that you are a dick.

~~~
vxNsr
Ugh, so done with this xkcd.

Ignoring people who we don't agree with is how we got to a place where
supporting your political party was more important than having an ideology you
could morally justify.

I personally lean fairly far to the right but I spend a lot of time listening
to NPR, reading slate, and other pretty lefty publications. When I talk to
people who only consume one side of the media, whether it's right or left, I
feel like I'm talking to a wall of nonsense. People have so little
understanding of those they disagree with and will dismiss them with "they're
a bunch of idiots" so quickly that their position has no basis in reality. I'm
not saying we should give everyone a platform, I'm saying that if someone says
"all the rich should be killed" or "gay men don't know love" each position
despite being on diametrically opposite sides of our current political
landscape need to be understood if we want to move forward.

~~~
gjjrfcbugxbhf
The OP is talking about extreme views like racism (or in their case hating
trans people).

You are talking about listening to Democrat opinions.

Very very different thing.

I am quite happy to be friends with people with different political opinions
or who vote for another party.

I am also happy to know who is spouting racist, sexist or crazy drivel. This
allows me personally to avoid them.

Others may choose to engage with the extremists I choose not to waste my time.
This is a matter for individual free will.

NB once again listening to Democrat/republican media when you are voting for
the other party is just normal and has nothing to do with choosing not to
associate with e.g Klansman.

------
azinman2
The lack of self-awareness in many of these comments is really quite shocking
— Id say it’s probably better that they’re not typically expressed.

------
perfmode
It seems regardless of one’s viewpoint, there is a strong reluctance to
digging deeper to examine the roots of one’s beliefs.

A lot of these people might not believe what they believe if they were to
attempt to justify their beliefs in a rigorous and intellectually honest way.

------
bdamm
"Silicon Valley" is a workplace, and it's generally considered rude to bring
your political views into the workplace. Everyone has met the very passionate
on both the left and the right, and having someone stand outside your cube or
in the lunch line trying to "win" you over to their view just isn't conducive
to getting your work done and making money.

~~~
Cookingboy
>"Silicon Valley" is a workplace, and it's generally considered rude to bring
your political views into the workplace.

In theory, yes, but in practice it's only considered "rude" when you bring
_unpopular_ political views into the workplace. In a partisan locale such as
SV people openly talk about the popular political view at work, all the time.

A Googler can go to TGIF Q&A and openly bash Trump/GOP and he'd get
sympathetic responses from Larry, if not cheers from the audience (and a bunch
of new memegen entries), but I highly doubt the same would be true for someone
expressing opposite views.

~~~
cinquemb
I used to work for a start up in Boston (co-lo'd with a bunch of other
startups) a couple years ago, and people would openly talk about politics of
the left-wing establishment variety and go around patting each other on the
back for it.

The stuff rude awakenings are made of…

------
evangelista
“A lot of the ideas here will not actually get you ostracized from Silicon
Valley society.”

Oh dude you have just not been paying attention.

Can you show me a single example of someone in tech who publicly expresses, at
any point, any of the beliefs which are “not allowed?”

I’m looking for one.

Find me one person on Twitter in tech aside from John McAfee or Peter Theil
who would dare. Sam Altman was good enough to step forward, I hope he won’t be
the last. The complete and total castigation of the dude by every tech media
outlet showed exactly what happens to anyone who isn’t rich enough not to
care.

While Sam Altman can take a beating, a standard employee like James Damore
can’t. Did we forget about him? Apparently we did!

Show me a single tech luminary staying that diversity is overrated and has
numerous downsides (such as the degradation of communal trust which had swept
the valley), that we don’t actually need additional codes of conduct to add
protections that are already covered in the US legal code at every Meetup,
that all gender bathrooms are lunacy or that most of the Millenials coming
into the job market have an incredibly broken and fearful view of the world
that is unwarranted by the available evidence.

Show me a single tech luminary willing to say that women should realize they
have advantages and disadvantages and should take responsibility for guarding
themselves st off-site social events to avoid being approached by men.

One! Show me one!

I can find these opinions on conservative podcasts but I have never seen
anyone express them in tech. Ever!

I see a non-stop avalanche of one set of these opinions on every social media
feed, internal company meeting and industry conference.

I have NEVER seen ANYONE notable in tech aside from Peter Thiel, who has been
made untouchable st this point.

Why is that? It’s because they know it’s not good business and they will get
to join Peter Theil in the excommunicated pile.

A great example is Scott Adams. Scott used to make hundreds of thousands of
dollars per year giving paid speeches.

When he began writing about Trump, he was excommunicated and all of his
speaking gigs were cancelled.

Another great example is the systematic and deliberate demonetization of
conservative YouTube videos. People who are very balanced and fair like Dave
Rubin have had their videos defunded for having conservative speakers as
interview guests.

Twitter has been notorious for slowing down or “never getting around to”
giving Blue Check Marks to conservative speakers - If I remember correctly,
Scott Adams had to reach a simply insane number of followers before being
given the check.

The hatred of conservatives and direct, persecutory and economic attacks on
them is real, ongoing and getting worse.

Seriously - if you believe most of these opinions won’t harm your career if
expressed publicly, you have really not been paying attention.

If you don’t believe me - Try it. Go on Twitter right now and say: “all gender
bathrooms are stupid.”

Watch what happens.

~~~
tstactplsignore
I don't think I could convince you of anything. But can I ask: if the other
side were right, and some of these views are so abhorrent that the outrage
against people who express them is almost entirely justified- would you be
able to tell?

There are definitely some political views that should be socially discouraged
and attacked and there should be social repercussions for the people who
express them. You disagree on whether some particular views fit in this
category. You must admit that from your position, it can be very difficult to
distinguish between unfair persecution and genuine persecution.

For the record, if a company I work for invited someone as purely evil / anti-
intellectual and vapid as Scott Adams to give a speech, I would absolutely
resign in protest.

~~~
Cookingboy
> some of these views are so abhorrent that the outrage against people who
> express them is almost entirely justified- would you be able to tell?

Yes, we can tell most of the time, and yes even if it gets difficult sometimes
and we fail to distinguish unfair and genuine persecution, we will try our
best to discuss it, study it, and get better at it. That's how we should
approach the problem. That, is the intellectual way.

Your method of automatically shutting down discussion of controversial ideas
just because a small percentage of them are truly evil, is in fact more anti-
intellectual than anything Scott Adams has ever said/written.

~~~
tstactplsignore
I certainly never said that was "my method".

I disagree that we can tell most of the time. I think we _can 't_ tell most of
the time. Most Americans couldn't tell in the 60s- about 33% of the country
had a favorable view of MLK. Most Germans couldn't tell in the 30s. And so on
and so on. If we were any good at tellint, then evil wouldn't be so scary!

My point is that here you are again, in a similar situation to those, saying
the exact same sorts of things the people who were wrong in those
circumstances said. It's possible we're _not_ in that kind of situation, but I
hope that you realize that (a) some of the things that you're upset about
(educated people pushing some ideas out of their institutions; radicals and
communists protesting in the streets; highly charged and accusatory language)
were the exact same sorts of things the people who ended up being wrong in
those circumstances were upset about, and (b) historically, people sympathetic
towards these bad ideas or unsympathetic to their opponents could not tell the
difference in their own times.

~~~
Cookingboy
So? That's my exact point. In all of your examples the righteous eventually
prevailed due to their own merits, and history proved that they were on the
right side.

You don't get claim victory by shutting down the debate at the beginning. You
don't get to moral high ground by "proclaiming" it, you get there by engaging
the opposition in debates and by fighting to change people's mind with
positive examples.

MLK knew he was right, and he worked hard to convince the remaining 66% of the
country by engaging with them, by changing one mind at a time.

>My point is that here you are again, in a similar situation to those, saying
the exact same sorts of things the people who were wrong in those
circumstances said.

That's some crazy logic fallacy. Just because you are pushing new agenda
doesn't mean you are automatically correct and your opposition are literally
the same as Nazis. You also automatically assume that your ideas are the "good
ones" and anything that differs even slightly to your opinion is "bad ideas".
How can you tell that you are not the one being sympathetic toward "bad
ideas", it is after all, like you said, hard to tell right?

You know who used the same kind of logic? Literally Nazis and Communists. They
automatically proclaimed their ideology as the "righteous ones" and brutally
shut down any debates.

I'm of the opinion that if you have to forcefully shut down opposite views
from even debating you, then your idea is not worth debating in the first
place, and you are just some immature child putting himself on a moral
pedestal.

I don't know how old you are, but I wish one day you get to learn that the
world is not black and white, but different shades of gray. And yes, even your
_own_ opinions will change throughout time, for different reasons.

------
thuris
Age discrimination did not make the list. Maybe the survey poster's audience
is not affected by it or maybe it's not controversial to admit that it is
common practice.

------
cousin_it
I wonder what percentage of HN users would subscribe to this sentence for some
values of X and Y: "I am worse at task X than person Y for genetic reasons."

~~~
falcolas
Well, add one. "I am worse at interpersonal interactions than my brother-in-
law for genetic reasons."

I'd also say that this is actually very easy to say, since you can also pick
out genetic anomalies: I could say the sentence about swimming and Michael
Phelps, or running and Usain Bolt, without a single person being offended or
disagreeing.

If you want to make the sentence controversial, you need to replace "person Y"
with "genetic group Y"; i.e. men, women, caucasians, blacks, asians,
mongoloids, or so on.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
This one is interesting:

> “Most successful entrepreneurs are simply lucky.”

Probably it's because "common wisdom" says it's the result of being smart and
hard work. But if luck plays such a big role (and let's be honest, it does -
there are also studies confirming that), it's difficult to be proud of your
success. Happy - yes. Proud? No more than a lottery winner. For many
successful people this would be an insult.

~~~
curun1r
There's an old saying (IIRC, attributed to Seneca) that luck is what happens
when preparation meets opportunity. I like that way of looking at things
because it neither minimizes the work and insight that someone put into their
success nor refuses to acknowledge that factors outside their control also
contributed.

------
pjc50
For reference, a discussion of what you genuinely can't say in China:
[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=35663&utm_source=dlv...](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=35663&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter)

------
ksec
So what am I suppose to talk about if I went to US or Silicon Valley? Also
wondering if this is _just_ silicon valley or US in general?

For those who have never been to US, and just reading news and watching TV on
it, it surely is a place full of controversy.

As a matter of fact, I am starting to see this isn't US only at all. It is the
same with UK on certain issues ( Mainly Brexit ) but in typical Brit fashion
they seems to be much more sensible about it when people disagree.

What happens to the old days where we agree to disagree. Take it on the chin,
put a smile on your face and walk away?

This isn't just social media's echo chamber, a lot of people seems to want to
blame them. But i think the social media only amplify the problem. Not the
course of it.

------
GuiA
_Both sides feel oppressed! For example, some people think you can’t question
diversity efforts; others think you can’t speak out about racism. Some think
you can’t praise capitalism; others think you can’t suggest socialism. It’s
theoretically possible that the Overton window could be in the middle and
exclude both extremes, but to my mind it’s more likely that people just like
to think or claim that their views are an oppressed minority._

That’s the real insight here. You wanted a fully networked society, well
that’s what comes with a fully networked society.

------
rdiddly
The "taboo" list is surprisingly run-of-the-mill. All of it seems like stuff I
see people discussing on the internet all the time. I thought there might be a
few original thoughts, but even the things they claim they can't say are
things they're kind of supposed to think. Different sides of boring issues.

Anyway rest assured there's no need to stifle heretical ideas with these
people. The ones thinking anything truly original were probably either the
ones left out of the 108, or never bothered answering or are already in
institutions etc.

~~~
blfr
These cannot be original ideas because they must have been expressed a few
times before people learned you shouldn't discuss them.

------
korax
Does anyone know of good research on how our ability to confront and discuss
controversial matters has changed over the last 50 years?

I am wondering whether previous generations were better able to handle intra-
and intergroup differences of ideology.

------
wolco
One quote I picked out. Early stage employees have it bad. This is true but
the increase freedom can balance this out.

Stock options are generally useless and in many ways force employees not to
move on to better opportunities.

------
thomzi12
To echo someone else's post, saying you work at [a boring tech company]
working on [boring ideas] is what is truly taboo in Silicon Valley.

------
hardlianotion
The survey is not very big.

------
venomsnake
I can think of one taboo opinion - supporting prop 8. Results - being fired.
Also it was made effective with back date. The firing of Brendan Eich was as
chilling effect as possible.

In the current climate you could get a pitchfork mob after you extremely easy
for even stuff perceived as homophobic - as the recent suicide of August Ames
showed.

------
anonbanker
This is a fantastic HN thread to scroll to the very bottom, and see which
opinions have been greyed-out from heavy downvote bombardments. Highly
recommended.

------
danieltillett
I think the most interesting thing about the recent debate is our true rulers
must be getting worried that things are getting out of control. They have not
forgotten about the Reign of Terror [0] or where this sort of thing can lead.
There is the real risk the masses actually might not be distracted by the
usual left/right pointless bickering and actually follow the money.

0\.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror)

Edit. Good to see what the real topic is you can't discuss in SV ;)

