
YC, Thiel and Trump – 100 Shades of Gray - pbiggar
https://medium.com/@paulbiggar/100-shades-of-gray-ff2f383082be
======
benjohnson
I am so thankful for my employees of our small company:

I'm a very religious Christian man, and I have two employees that are very
left of center and another employee that is gay.

That we can work together, learn from each other, and respect each other
despite our sincerely held convictions means a lot to me especially during
these witch-hunting times.

I hope that I show them the same respect and consideration they have shown me.

------
kafkaesq
Some people think that reality (at least political and social reality) can
never be pinned down, it's always shrouded in contradictions and fog. There's
just way too many factoids slinging around; you'll never be able to separate
the wheat from the chaff.

Some people think that at the end of the day, there's so much back and forth
in politics and in the mediasphere that it's impossible to tell what's what,
or who's on first. Let alone who's right or who's wrong. Like it's all must a
matter of... he said, she said.

But this isn't one of those situations.

And in fact sometimes it's really not that hard to make a solid judgement
call. It's just a matter of telling from wheat from chaff.

Which in this case -- given the multitude of statements from women on the
receiving of his aggressive (and in some cases, likely criminal) behavior; and
from his own words on the Billy Bush tape, which by this point everyone at
least knows the salient facts of (and most likely has listened to directly,
several times, already) -- just isn't that hard.

 _" You can do anything you want. You can grab them by the ..._

------
_pius
While it's important to recognize context and nuance, there _are_ actual facts
in the world and it serves no one to put "some people believe" in front of
them as this piece does in many instances just to appear neutral.

Engaging in that sort of knowledge nihilism makes it impossible to have
honest, rational debates because it doesn't allow for participants to agree on
even the most basic of facts.

~~~
generic_user
I think what the author was trying to get at with 'some people believe' is
that most of the 'reasons' people fall back on to support their positions are
in fact simply personal opinions. Or opinions reinforced by there social group
or social media 'friends'.

Extreme polarisation is one of the results of segregation. The media and now
academia with 'safe spaces' are pandering to segregationist impulses. People
who are never challenged with opinions that they disagree with are much more
likely to believe there opinions are facts. Or even that they simply they do
not need to even consider opinions that disagree with there own and never
develop the social skills to constructive deal with a diverse world of ideas
and opinions.

------
qntty
A nice (if long-winded) reminder that things aren't black and white. But what
is a person supposed to do with a list of complex, nuanced facts? That's why
we talk about things, right? To make sense of them? Isn't that's why we invent
simple (sometimes overly simple) ideas? Nobody can hold all the complexities
of the world in their head at once. Our black and white ideas serve an
important purpose, even when they don't describe reality exactly as it is.

------
dreamdu5t
Political positions are not necessarily opinions. Opinions and preferences are
not facts. Pretending they are is either stupid or disingenuous. Where did
this attitude originate?

