
Mark Zuckerburg comments on Peter Thiel controversy regarding Trump donation - anders098
https://s13.postimg.org/ohe1sci6f/mmexport1476831885441.jpg
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judah
Some surprising wisdom in this private note: If everyone looks different but
thinks the same, that's not real diversity.

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joshuahaglund
When people say "half the country supports X candidate" I like to point out
polls only count registered voters who are likely to vote, which is closer to
half the eligible voting population (which of course doesn't include any of
the non-adults).

It's more like each candidate has support from less than a quarter of the
population and most people don't support either.

Somehow I find that reassuring.

~~~
nullcodes
Don't be daft. The non-voters are the ones who don't care. They don't care
about xenophobia doing its thing. They don't care that Hillary may be corrupt.
They don't care about the fact that Trump wants to carry out extrajudicial
killings of people who might be related to terrorists. They don't care he
wants more extreme forms of torture than waterboarding. Get real the people
who aren't voting probably would make the country worse.

~~~
ItendToDisagree
Or they have given up on voting for a shit sandwich vs a dirty douche. Either
way you vote you lose.

This covers a vast group of people in the united states.

As George Carlin (loosely) said: If you voted for the people in power, you
have no right to complain when they do things you dont like. You voted them
in. I on the other hand... Did not vote for them and have every right to
complain about the mess you made and I had nothing to do with.

~~~
strangebrew
Love Carlin, but you can't make keeping your hands clean the main priority in
life.

I raise you one Emerson: "The other terror that scares us from self-trust is
our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of
others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we
are loath to disappoint them.

But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about this
corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or
that public place? Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then?

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little
statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has
simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the
wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-
morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said
to-day.--'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.'\--Is it so bad, then,
to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus,
and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise
spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

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ArleneMiddleton
Zuckerburg should elevate the conversation. Accusations are not proven leave
the sexism out. Knowing Hillary's Campaign staffs comments about Catholics,
gays, blacks, hispanics and etc. demeaning comments provides a springboard for
free and fair political speech. Zuckerburg is proving himself to be low minded
and poorly educated pertaining to our constitutional rights provided centuries
past from high minded genius founding fathers.

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suryaj
I get it that you can't fire someone over his support of a political candidate
but what about his public views on rape and racism:
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/21/peter-
thi...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/21/peter-thiel-
support-donald-trump-date-rape-book?CMP=share_btn_tw)

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paulnelligan
It seems to be a typical postmodern viewpoint that every idea is equally
valid. But even if you're not "racist, sexist, xenophobic, or accepting sexual
assault", if you, as a reasonably minded individual, back Trump, you're
condoning all of these things, which is really just as bad ... Not everybody's
idea is valid!

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PunchTornado
that's just your opinion and I feel bad that I'm voting for the same candidate
as someone like you who doesn't tolerate other people's political choices.

~~~
zenocon
I feel equally as bad that this person has been fed a narrative and hasn't
gone out to debunk the propaganda and find out what is really going on behind
the curtain. We can have a disagreement, sure, but when the argument is just
shouting "sexist, racist, homophobe, xenophobe", etc. it's clear there's no
real political discourse to be had, which is sad because there's a boatload of
disgusting politics and corruption being exposed right now.

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internaut
The last paragraph introduces a question interesting to me.

Is opening up communication channels responsible for social conflict?

Is Mark right or wrong in his last paragraph.

I've always assumed he was wrong but the premise should be examined
explicitly.

Naturally I don't claim that the radio or newspapers _invented_ the social
conflict. I am saying they could be responsible for the actual incidence of
conflict itself.

If you picture each person as a collection of memes, then;

> The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human
> mind to correlate all its contents. - H.P Lovecraft

The potential for conflict in the individual is not resolved with conflict for
the most part. We do know the more intellectual among us tend to be more
neurotic, perhaps another hint at the essential lovecraftian truth.

That means barefaced conflict is only possible when an individual meets
another and communicates. It is then latent contradictions become evident.

Far from the notion that communication acts as a meditator and leads to peace,
the truth might be the opposite.

tldr; if we don't talk to each other, everything will be fine!

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metageekdesign
Zuckerberg should look at his own aegist, chauvinist company and get rid of
discrimination in his own company before critiquing others who he feels are
not imbracing diversity.

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gragas
Source?

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k__
What is it with you US-people and 2 candidates?!?!

I mean this is ridiculous.

He's all like "oh don't hate on Thiel just because he supports Trump. Half of
the US does it so it's a valid opinion"

Why not support other republicans who aren't chauvinists?

They talk like "Oh we just have Trump and Hilary and Hilary is corrupt, so
what should we do? Vote Trump of cause!"

I mean if you're a chauvinist and like what Trumps says, just vote for him,
it's your right to do so. But talking about diversity and then supporting
people against it is bullshit.

"Hey yes, you can work at FB, we think you got mad skills, but we will invest
the money you make in people who make your life worse!"

~~~
peatmoss
> What is it with you US-people and 2 candidates?!?!

It's the natural consequence of a plurality voting system.

Conservatives remember H. Ross Perot spoiling the election for George H.W.
Bush, and throwing the election to Bill Clinton. Progressives remember Ralph
Nader making the contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush close enough that
G.W. was given the election by a Supreme Court stocked with his dad's buddies.

Voting for third parties is a terrible political strategy in the United
States. The spoiler effect is real. I'd go so far as to say that our plurality
system all but guarantees bad candidates--it's not the fittest that survive
the primary election process, it's the most memorable, the one who we feel
will best appeal to our neighbors.

Going further, I'd suggest that having a strong majority political belief is a
major liability in U.S. elections.

When Bill Clinton was elected, the nation was largely happy with the center-
right GOP of the time. As a result, the further right bloc had the confidence
and diversity of small differences of opinion to split and lose the whole
thing. (Never minding the fact that Bill Clinton was far to the right of
traditional Democrats).

The same was true with Nader and Gore in 2000. Bill Clinton's policies had
been so popular that people largely wanted another Clinton, but perhaps a
little more progressive. Disagreement ensued as to how much more progressive,
and thus we had Nader and Gore losing to the much more hawkish right-wing
George W. Bush.

So, in the U.S., you're best off being part of a popular political leaning,
but pray your political leanings don't grow so popular as to result in a
split.

My personal feeling is that this country desperately needs to move past
plurality voting. The easiest path to this is for states to apportion their
electors based on ranked choice voting. It doesn't solve all our problems, but
it does remove the spoiler effect. With luck, that would allow us to have less
shrill, more substantive candidates--even if the major parties continue to
dominate.

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CamperBob2
_My personal feeling is that this country desperately needs to move past
plurality voting. The easiest path to this is for states to apportion their
electors based on ranked choice voting. It doesn 't solve all our problems,
but it does remove the spoiler effect. With luck, that would allow us to have
less shrill, more substantive candidates--even if the major parties continue
to dominate._

I think you've made some insightful points here, particularly when you said
"In the U.S., you're best off being part of a popular political leaning, but
pray your political leanings don't grow so popular as to result in a split."
This does explain a lot.

However, I'd like to see some evidence that ranked-choice voting actually
leads to better outcomes. I believe Australia has this system, doesn't it?
They've elected some of the worst sorts of people I've ever seen in public
office outside of an outright dictatorship, pushing the worst sorts of
policies.

My concern is that RCV-like voting strategies may encourage a tyranny of the
majority to emerge. While I'm no supporter of either Jill Stein or Bernie
Sanders, I do like the idea that Hillary Clinton has to worry about what they
have to say, for fear of being Nadered in one or more critical swing states.
Likewise, I can see the Libertarians, both big-L and small-l, having a
moderating influence on the knee-jerk theocrats who would like to take over
the GOP. It seems that ranked-choice voting might have the effect of removing
those beneficial "spoiler effects."

Just as one example, most Americans self-identify as members of the Christian
faith. (Not picking on religion per se, just saying that it's probably the one
cultural attribute that Americans share more widely than any others.) The same
is true in Australia. There, a wave of neo-Puritanism has swept over the
country, resulting in legislative micromanagement of everything from Internet
censorship to the bra sizes of porn actresses.

So, does ranked-choice voting inevitably lead to the emergence of a nanny
state? If so, I think we're better off here in the US with the strong two-
party system. If not, are there any other downsides that should be discussed
before switching over to RCV?

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mhenr18
No, we don't have internet censorship in Australia. The idea was mooted and
then shot down after backlash. That government was also voted out.

We also have no such regulation regarding the breast sizes of porn actresses.
The refusal of classification is done on a "We'll know it when we see it"
basis, much in the same way that many US laws are interpreted.

Your comments about religion are inaccurate in that we do not allow our faith
to dictate our politics in the same way as the US. A 2011 Census question put
Christianity at about 60%, while in the US it's at 70%. We do not have parts
of the country that have a reputation for being deeply religious (unlike the
American South) and we do not reference a deity of any kind in any official
pledge whatsoever. We don't even have a pledge of allegiance that we force on
our children in schools.

Our country has real problems (i.e humanitarian treatment of refugees and the
environment) but we aren't the kind of place you're talking about.

Our High Court isn't a political game, our banks didn't fall apart during
07-08, and our worst terrorist attack in the past 10 years wasn't even bad
enough to be considered a "mass murder" under the FBI's definitions.

One key difference between Australia and the US is that our Parliament can be
dismissed if they are at a gridlock. This prevents the kind of gross
obstructionism that has prevented the US government from functioning properly
in recent years.

The other key difference is that we have compulsory voting.

~~~
CamperBob2
_We also have no such regulation regarding the breast sizes of porn actresses.
The refusal of classification is done on a "We'll know it when we see it"
basis, much in the same way that many US laws are interpreted._

Sounds like you're under some mistaken impressions about First Amendment law
in the US, particularly doctrines such as strict scrutiny. But to be fair, I'm
sure that's true for both of us.

In any case, you've made an impassioned defense of the lawmaking process in
Australia, but failed to answer my question regarding whether RCV would
actually lead to improved outcomes if implemented in the US.

~~~
mhenr18
I wasn't trying to claim that Australia is somehow equivalent to the US in
terms of what's protected (because it isn't - the US is undoubtedly more
protective of speech than Australia), but more making the point that in the
porn case we don't make nanny-state laws saying that X breast size is too
small. Rather, content classification is taken on a case-by-case basis using
the "We'll know when we see it" threshold that allows for some flexibility and
common sense without needing to make all kinds of meddling regulations.

If adopted right now with no other considerations, preferential voting offers
one big win for the US over the current status quo, which is that you'd be
able to quantify the _true_ level of support that the minor parties have.

If given the option of voting third-party without running the risk of vote
stealing, I'm certain that _tons_ of Americans would take that option. Right
now Alice might want to vote third party but won't do it because she knows
that people like Bob won't, and Bob won't vote third party because he knows
that Alice won't do it. Preferential voting breaks that cycle because it
doesn't matter how other people vote and allows people to just care about
their own vote.

Both the Australian and US Green parties were founded in the 1990s, and the
Australian Greens have been able to take seats and hold the balance of power
at times while the US Green party hasn't been able to take a single seat at
the federal level or in most states. I fully attribute that to the ability of
preferential voting to let minor parties grow over time without fear of vote
stealing.

There are also a few other things that Australia does with voting that I think
make a lot of sense, but many of these don't really need preferential voting
to be of value to the US:

    
    
      - All elections (local, state, and federal) are held on Saturdays. 
        I don't really think I need to explain why this is a Good Thing.
    
      - Voting is compulsory. For free speech advocates this is sometimes a 
        tough pill to swallow. However, compulsory voting ensures that people 
        of all economic backgrounds and living situations still turn up and vote 
        - without making it mandatory and forcing everyone to do it many people 
        simply won't be able to find the time to vote. You are still allowed to 
        cast an informal (and thus uncounted) vote if you *really* don't want to 
        express your political views.
    
      - You do not have to vote at a designated polling place - you are free to
        vote at any polling place on the day of the election without any 
        justification whatsoever for being out of your electorate, and you are not
        required to register for an absentee vote ahead of time in this case. Again, 
        this is a way of ensuring that as many people vote as is humanly possible. It's 
        also somewhat required here due to it being really unfair to force people to
        vote but then potentially turn them away for being in the wrong place. 
        (Electoral rolls are of course checked during counting to ensure that people 
        haven't voted at multiple polling places)
    
      - Funding is allocated to the recipients of first preference votes (as long as 
        there's more than a certain threshold). House votes are worth $2.60, Senate 
        votes are worth twice as much and the value is indexed to inflation. This 
        allows smaller parties to slowly build up a base over time without actually 
        winning the election to begin with.
    
      - We do not use electronic voting. Our elections have comprehensive paper trails
        that can be audited to ensure accuracy.
    

As for things we do that don't make sense with our voting system, one downside
of a diverse Senate is that we have a _ton_ of candidates. This results in
something of an excessively large ballot paper!
[http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2013/03/11/1226594/7771...](http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2013/03/11/1226594/777191-ballot-
paper.jpg)

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Tempest1981
What he writes sounds reasonable. Although I'm equally disturbed by Facebook
News Memes like Tomi Lahren: [http://deadspin.com/tomi-lahren-is-a-facebook-
meme-come-to-l...](http://deadspin.com/tomi-lahren-is-a-facebook-meme-come-to-
life-and-america-1786062538)

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codezero
Is there a link to this? That photo doesn't appear to match Zuck's profile.

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kilotaras
That post is "Facebook only." Note the "f" in privacy.

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TheBranca18
Does such a setting actually exist? I cannot find any information about that.
There hasn't been any other source for this post either.

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apgwoz
One would assume that would be for facebook employees only.

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gerardnll
Looks like it was posted here:
[http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/10/13229082/facebook-work-
of...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/10/13229082/facebook-work-office-
enterprise-software)

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sbose78
If Mark is unsure about what makes Peter throw his weight behind Trump, why
not ask him?

Not that he is answerable but if he has good reasons I'm sure he wouldn't mind
talking about them.

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ndaign
Sexual assault is not an idea. How about having the courage to stand up
against a major player from your circle because it's the right thing to do.

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swindham58
IF YOU CARED ABOUT DIVERSITY...YOU WOULDN'T "PUNISH" FB'ERS BY IMPEDING THEIR
FIGHT TO LIKE OR DISLIKE A POST..OR CLAIM LANGUAGE IS OFFENSIVE AND YET
PRINTING "MADONNA PROMISES BLOW JOBS!"..OR OBUMMER ROCKS A WOODY ON FB...ETC
ETC....YOU'RE A HYPOCRITE!!!

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mpinar
Trump is an embarrassment for United States of America but we can't impose our
judgment those who want to support and vote for him. Nor do I agree with Mark
Zuckerberg that half the country Support this man.

~~~
Phil_Latio
Is that a royal we?

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akras14
I agree 100%. Haters gonna hate.

