Welcome, ACLU

https://medium.com/ycombinator/welcome-aclu-e45e27aedb6e#.xblr2ga3y

by katm • 9 years ago

1558 943 9 years ago

medium.com

minimaxir• 9 years ago

Was this association in the works before the events of last weekend?

bduerst• 9 years ago

Does it make a difference? It seems more relevant now, not last week.

wtvanhest6• 9 years ago

I remember when HN did not have a political agenda. Right or wrong, this used to be mainly about startups. Now its become a highly political message board

dang2• 9 years ago

No, it hasn't. The rule has been the same for years: most politics are off topic. Check it out: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. The difference between "most" and "all" is significant. HN can't be immune to what's going on in the outside world and we've learned from years of experience that it doesn't make sense to try. At the same time, we're not going to let politics overwhelm the site, since that would kill it.

The concern about HN becoming too political or not political enough is as old as HN. There are at least as many users complaining that we're suppressing all the political stories and what not. I wrote more about this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13522433 if anyone's interested.

rubidium• 9 years ago

I wish I had the time to gather the data. Someone please do this. Make sure to normalize against total activity.

I'm a hn user since at least 9.8 years ago (my first HN handle was different than current, which is 7 years old).

To my impression as a relatively apolitical person, the site has become MUCH more political in the past year. I may be wrong in that though.

wtvanhest6• 9 years ago

I used the word 'mainly' because I understand that HN has always had some political conversation in the background. I have personally learned about immigration issues, digital privacy, etc. etc. on HN. Those are valuable things to understand, and I enjoyed reading about them.

Now, it is clear that YC leadership has taken a highly liberal stand. I won't make a judgement on liberal or republican, but it feels more and more extreme. When an organization leans either direction too hard, it loses its purity. YC is becoming the liberal version of the Koche Brothers. HN is reflecting that in YC's movement.

I'm sure that Sam Altman and the rest of your team feel that it is worth it, but in my opinion, overt political support by an organization feels like a losing long-term strategy.

I guess we will see

dentemple• 9 years ago

The travel ban disproportionally impacts the tech community, including "startups."

From the hundreds of Big 4 employees who now can't return home or travel overseas, to the 110,000 answers submitted to StackOverflow from the now banned countries, this affects the industry.

cpburns2009• 9 years ago

I would like to know how many people in the tech community are actually impacted by this. A temporary ban on immigration from a few unstable counties is not an embargo.

ProAm• 9 years ago

It really doesn't. It has a monetary agenda, which is not bad or good but they are doing things for the best interest of YC.

jacquesm5• 9 years ago

I remember when HN did not have a political agenda.

Discussing politics is not the same as having an agenda.

Right or wrong, this used to be mainly about startups.

I don't recall such a time and I've been here quite long.

Now its become a highly political message board

This is most likely a reaction to real world developments involving a large number of HN participants.

Just like HN isn't a San Francisco local affair and yet when BART has issues you can expect it to be upvoted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7774764

maxerickson7• 9 years ago

It's also the case that not wanting to have political discussions is itself a political agenda.

It might not be a secret or pernicious agenda, but it seems people forget what agenda means.

gtaylor• 9 years ago

Being indifferent and taking our (US) liberties for granted have landed us in a tough spot. While it isn't ideal for YC to have to get involved, it's going to be a knock-down-drag-out to prevent as much damage as we can. This is probably going to be annoying to a subset of the users here that don't care or who support the current administration. There is no pleasing everyone. But YC is an org in the US, and will be affected by what is happening.

I was very happy to see YC do their part in what will be a 4-8 year (at least) battle of attrition and will. The ACLU is one of the best advocates for the people, in a country where corporate and religious lobbying trumps most.

stephancoral• 9 years ago

Politics are involved in everything. Each business decision made by a company the size and scale of YC has political ramifications. Even something 'innocuous' as funding Scribd is a political move - why? Think about copyrights, the lawyers needed to handle trademark laws and to challenge them. Or Soylent - they circumvent the FDA and do direct food testing on people, resulting in contamination outbreaks. Are these not political moves, this policy of 'disruption' i.e. grey-area skirting of existing so-called 'burdensome' regulation(s)?

There are no vacuums anymore, if there ever were (which I doubt). If something is 'about' startups then it is by necessity also about the politics those companies are involved in, especially considering in the US companies are persons with certain rights of expression.

Thanks to the intertwining of capitalism with our representative democracy by way of lobbying, our everyday lives are politicized. Should we suppress these notions or engage with them?

ebbv• 9 years ago

This is great news. The ACLU has always been important, and is even more important right now as the disregard for civil liberties continues to grow in our government (at all levels including federal, state and local.)

I set up a monthly donation to the ACLU last year, and encourage everyone who can afford to do so to join in.

EDIT: Clarify wording.

sjcsjc2• 9 years ago

503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

sjcsjc2• 9 years ago

And now a 500 error. Still haven't managed to read it.

jasondrowley• 9 years ago

I keep getting an error message when I load the page.

lorenzhs• 9 years ago

http://archive.is/8Liu7 for anyone having trouble loading the page

savagej4• 9 years ago

I thought the "A" in ACLU stood for American.

CydeWeys12• 9 years ago

And where do you think Silicon Valley is, or where YCombinator is based?

geofft3• 9 years ago

The future nation of California, whose independence campaign is supported by part-time YC partner and New Zealand citizen Peter Thiel.

maxerickson7• 9 years ago

I believe they may be making an oblique reference to the ACLU acting on behalf of immigrants this past weekend.

Of course, it's perfectly consistent to believe that the government of the United States of America does not sufficiently respect the civil liberties of non citizens.

mcphage• 9 years ago

It does. American Civil Liberties Union.

eddieroger2• 9 years ago

It does. What do you mean by your comment?

savagej4• 9 years ago

People who have never been to America are not Americans.

_m8fo2• 9 years ago

Any word on whether or not this was planned, or is this a reaction to recent events? If the latter, then I can't help but feel that this is just politically conveninent. The alternative is worse (not giving any funding), but hey, I feel what I feel.

CydeWeys12• 9 years ago

It's not that it's politically convenient right now, it's that it is necessary. No need to be cynical. The executive orders that made this necessary only started happening within the last two weeks.

ubercore• 9 years ago

My view would be more that it was unclear _how necessary_ this was before January. I think a lot of people, pundits and politicians included, expected a certain amount of moderation, which hasn't really happened. I'd put this move as an ounce of prevention, personally. And what's the alternative, not to do this? I don't see how that could be counterproductive.

_m8fo2• 9 years ago

There must be a misunderstanding. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do this. I'm just hoping that Ycombinator isn't simply being reactive. Even if they are, it's better than nothing, but generally speaking, for things like this, they're done far in advance, no?

rory096• 9 years ago

Site's intermittent. Here's a copy:

We are delighted to be funding the ACLU as a non-profit[0] in our Winter 2017 batch.

The ACLU has always been important, but has a particularly important role[1] right now. We are honored to be able to help, and we will send some of our team to New York for the rest of the batch to assist.

The ACLU will have full access to the Y Combinator network and community, and they will present at Demo Day in March.

We are hopeful that the YC community will join us in supporting this important work. In particular, if you’re an engineer and want to spend some time helping them out, let us know.[2] We’ll keep you updated on opportunities.

Also, please consider donating to the ACLU.[3]

[0] http://www.ycombinator.com/nonprofits/

[1] https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/president-trumps-firs...

[2] https://ycombinatorevents.wufoo.com/forms/q42uszl19i1mu6/

[3] https://action.aclu.org/secure/donate-to-aclu

Swizec• 9 years ago

Wait, news.ycombinator.com can hug of death ycombinator.com?

That's insane.

Also I'm happy that this is happening and did not realize such a thing was possible. Does ACLU count as an early stage startup?

PS: no need to downvote, jeez, I'm just pointing out a curious observation

rjbwork• 9 years ago

They* introduced non-profit funding a while ago.

CydeWeys12• 9 years ago

I don't know exactly what this means, as the implementation details are hazy, but if this entails substantial support to the ACLU (in terms of lawyers, money, or both), then that is awesome. I donated to the ACLU yesterday and I'm encouraging everyone I know to do the same.

sandworm101• 9 years ago

Im taking this as a statement, that progress for traditional ycombinator startups is under threat from things the ACLU deals with. It isnt a startup, far from it, but the ACLU is someone that you want on speeddial these days.

TorKlingberg7• 9 years ago

For people outside the US, I believe it is perfectly fine to donate to ACLU, but do check if there is an equivalent organization in your country. For example in the UK there is Liberty (https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/). Threats to human rights are a global problem after all.

treehau53• 9 years ago

I don't donate to the ACLU because I believe in the civil rights for all people, outside the womb, and inside. Is there a similar organization I can donate to?

m3rc5• 9 years ago

Oh, yeah there is, and you can donate here: https://action.aclu.org/secure/donate-to-aclu

beat2• 9 years ago

Consider the EFF. They're more narrowly focused, and unlikely to come in conflict with your beliefs. And, with a battle over Net Neutrality being almost inevitable, they could use our help, too.

coldpie8• 9 years ago

Can you elaborate on why that position excludes the ACLU from receiving your support? I don't understand your position.

mikeyouse3• 9 years ago

FIRE is a higher education focused group that's probably more in line with your sensibilities. They mostly focus on 1a topics, but they do good work.

https://www.thefire.org/

The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America's colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience — the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE's core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them.

burkaman4• 9 years ago

If you're referring to this specific immigration issue, the National Immigration Law Center is a good one: https://www.nilc.org/

ernestipark• 9 years ago

That this is being downvoted is extremely telling of the audience here. Engage in a discussion if you disagree. Downvoting unpopular opinions into oblivion is how you get a SV/liberal echo chamber.

cdelsolar3• 9 years ago

But inside the womb they're not people yet.

comicjk• 9 years ago

I appreciate that you're concerned for people inside and outside of the womb, but I think you're not paying enough attention to a third group: the people who are the womb.

cptskippy3• 9 years ago

I would caution people about how they donate to the ACLU. I made a donation last year and since then have been awash in solicitations for donations from SCLC, Planned Parenthood, Grean Peace, PETA, and other leftist organizations.

While I don't object to many of these organizations, I take my privacy very seriously and I wasn't aware when I donated that my personal information would be given/sold out the way it has been.

whichdan• 9 years ago

If you check out the donation form, people are opted-out of that by default now. (Not sure how it was previously.)

buechs• 9 years ago

there's an option on the donation page where you can opt-in to the ACLU sharing your details with other charitable organizations. (the default is opt-out).

nowarninglabel• 9 years ago

Yes, I experienced this as well, though it was about 8 years ago. I was really disappointed in the ACLU, I would have thought of all people they would be the last ones to sell off private information. It bothers me that all these groups have spent more money on sending me mail in the ensuing years than the original donation amount to the ACLU.

At least now it seems like they let you opt out.

This is a problem in the non-profit industry that should get addressed, especially given younger generations are less likely to respond to mailers anyways.

nommm-nommm• 9 years ago

I don't think you can fault the ACLU? In my experience: I donated a few times in the past and now I am a guardian of liberty (monthly donation) and I've never gotten any solicitations from any other charity/organization. However in college I never donated to any charity (wasn't stingy, just prioritizing being able to eat and pay rent at that time...) And I got piles and piles and piles of solicitations for those organizations you've mentioned. I don't know where the "leak" came from.

ErikVandeWater5• 9 years ago

Does the ACLU have any new product/entrepreneurial goals for the future? Without, it would seem this is a somewhat unusual association.

actsasbuffoon• 9 years ago

The new product is called "civil liberties." I signed up for their mailing list. I hope I get invited to the beta!

spacemanmatt• 9 years ago

I have been using mine for decades and they're truly excellent. 10/10, would recommend. I really hope they continue to kick out more good products.

joshmarlow• 9 years ago

I think this makes sense strategically for multiple reasons:

- YC would undoubtedly like to ensure there are no barriers to immigrant founded startups that they would like to invest in

- ensuring that there are fewer barriers to employment by immigrants in invested startups

- generally trying to build a better more open world (which is in line with the UBI initiative [0] as well as the stated interest in investigating new concepts for city design [1])

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/31/y-combinator-announces-bas...

[1] https://www.wired.com/2016/07/y-combinators-plan-build-new-c...

Eridrus3• 9 years ago

Right, I'm sort of confused by what YC will do for the ACLU besides donate some cash to try to make up for the Thiel optics.

burkaman4• 9 years ago

YC has been donating to nonprofits for a few years. It's not an investment, and the relationship is not the same as the one they have with startups. I think the general idea is just to support a good cause, and give them access to a bunch of rich entrepreneurs who might want to partner or donate.

emperorcezar• 9 years ago

How long till Peter Thiel breaks ties with y-combinator?

w00tw00tw00t2• 9 years ago

Not soon enough.

CydeWeys12• 9 years ago

Hopefully it happens the other way around, no?

deskamess• 9 years ago

Hopefully not... YC needs to retain the inclusiveness. It should have the ability to disagree with civility. If PT is acting in a way that hurts YC's investments then I expect YC to have a civil discussion with him.

jasonmp85• 9 years ago

Too long.

wnevets3• 9 years ago

Is this the first time ycombinator.com has funded a group involved in politics?

CydeWeys12• 9 years ago

The ACLU is involved in protecting civil liberties, not politics.

wnevets3• 9 years ago

One man's "protecting civil liberties" is another man's politics.

justin664• 9 years ago

In fairness, they are an advocacy group whose activities include political lobbying.

No idea how accurate these figures are, but: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00003147...

wut42• 9 years ago

Directly yes, but indirectly an YC partner (Peter Thiel) has funded Trump.

sillysaurus32• 9 years ago

From http://blog.samaltman.com/the-2016-election

"Peter is a part-time partner at YC, meaning he spends a small fraction of his time advising YC companies, does not have a vote in how YC is run, and in his case waives the equity part-time partners normally get."

maxerickson7• 9 years ago

How do you classify, say, reddit?

sillysaurus32• 9 years ago

Reddit is a startup in the sense of http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html

The ACLU probably isn't, and I think the parent's question is whether YC has funded any other companies of the same type.

wnevets3• 9 years ago

reddit has political post on their website but I wouldn't say reddit itself is involved in politics.

jMyles7• 9 years ago

Looking through last year's class, it's fairly easy to see a political bent to 50% of the groups or more.

Increasingly - and assuringly IMO - it's difficult to coherently distinguish "groups involved in politics" from other groups (ie, there is no other type of group).

gadders3• 9 years ago

YC/Sam A hosted a fund raiser for the Democratic party/Obama [1]

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/20/president-obama-will-headl...

anigbrowl11• 9 years ago

Depends. Lots of people consider the EFF to be a political organization, but it has always enjoyed major social privileges here. Not sure about the specific financial relationships and don't feel like investing hours in compiling that information, but I'd be quite surprised if YC hadn't supported the EFF financially, directly or indirectly.

chickenfries4• 9 years ago

Peter Thiel insists that the immigration EO is does not constitute a religious ban [1], but Rudy Giuliani says this is exactly what the President asked for [2] (Also, we heard him say as much many, many times).

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2017/01/28/peter-thiel-s...

[2] http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316726-giuliani-t...

arkitaip• 9 years ago

Thiel is sycophant and a liar and if he wasn't close friends with Sam and the others he would have been throw out of Y Combinator.

phreeza• 9 years ago

Honest question: are you sure you mean sycophant? He strikes me as a kind of abrasive character, not what I would associate with a sycophant.

ihsw5• 9 years ago

It's not just Peter Thiel but anyone of sound mind -- the top 5 countries by Muslim-majority population are not included.

* Indonesia 204,847,000 (87.2%)

* Pakistan 178,097,000 (96.4%)

* India 172,245,158 (14.2%)

* Bangladesh 145,312,000 (90%)

* Nigeria 75,728,000 (47.9%)

If Indonesia suddenly became plagued by radical Islamic terrorism then it would be on the list too.

The seven countries targeted by the immigration ban have been either failed states or antagonistic to the US for the past 30 years, it is quite plain to say that it makes sense for Trump's companies -- and various other companies across a wide swath of industries -- to refrain from conducting business there. To say that other Muslim-majority countries aren't on the list due to conflict of interest is to deny this simple logic.

Plenty of other Muslim-majority countries have kept a lid on their populace by maintaining adequate internal security within their borders and providing valuable counter-terrorism intelligence to to the US, meanwhile the seven "countries of concern" have not.

chickenfries4• 9 years ago

You think Indonesia doesn't have problems with terrorism? (Edit: also, Pakistan?). The idea that this is a reasonable counterterrorism measure by any means is a farce that doesn't stand up to the lightest of scrutiny. It's a test of executive power, perhaps for something more sinister [1].

[1] https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/trial-balloon-for-a-coup-e...

wavefunction• 9 years ago

Why were Saudi Arabia and Egypt left off the list? That's where most of the 9/11 hijackers and planners hailed from.

I think you're hearing echoes in your "sound mind."

mkagenius• 9 years ago

Pakistan

They were the homes for Osama bin Laden(s), weren't they?

jacquesm5• 9 years ago

Consider:

(1) this could be just a trial balloon

(2) there are no other war torn countries on the list (and there are many)

(3) many of the stated reasons for this ban appear to be total nonsense, so people will start looking for alternative explanations.

cowsandmilk2• 9 years ago

If Trump had found a way to ban muslims from those countries, he would have.

Trump tried to find a way to institute this ban such that it wasn't blatantly a muslim ban. He decided that if he used a country list from the Obama administration, he could use that as a defense. This is generally how people try to create racist laws in modern times. The Voting Rights Act wasn't created because states created laws saying "minorities should be discouraged from voting". It was created because politicians came up with laws that targeted minorities without explicitly naming them.

Thiel went to Stanford Law, he knows this, he is just trying to recover because he still doesn't know what to do about the fact that Trump was talking literally, despite Thiel's insistence repeatedly that Trump was talking symbolically. If this isn't a muslim ban, Thiel can continue to insist that Trump's promise of such a ban was not literal.

wheelerwj2• 9 years ago

Why did you leave out saudi Arabia? nearly 100% muslim, home to over 50% of the terrorist who have attcked the US.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

aptwebapps• 9 years ago

An incomplete Muslim ban is still a Muslim ban. He's not banning any other religions as far as I know.

aeturnum2• 9 years ago

I think it's correct to say this executive order is not a, "global Muslim ban," but it's clearly focused on specifically stopping Muslims from coming to the US.

The "logic" for the countries selected is that they were already "countries of concern." [1] However, the executive order is written in such a way as to allow religious minorities in, even though they're from a "country of concern." The implication is that what makes the countries, "of concern," is their Muslim majorities. Otherwise, it would be unsafe to let in other religious groups as well.

There are all kinds of explanations for this, of course. The administration may have wanted to ban everyone, but didn't want the heat from the Christian right. They may have wanted to specify Christians instead of minorities, but they would look even more anti-semitic than they already do [2]. They may have written a sloppy executive order and not forseen how it would play.

They may also have used a list of countries from the Obama era as cover and written the order such that it would focus on Muslims with plausible deniability about that focus. They've already said they can add more countries to the list.

I think pointing out that the executive order could have banned more Muslims is worth saying but somewhat misses the point. The people who wrote this clearly think adherents to Islam are more dangerous than other believers. The fact that most Muslims can still get to the US does not change the nature of the order.

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/29/politics/how-the-trump-adminis... [2] http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/28/team_trump...

mcguire2• 9 years ago

"...have kept a lid on their populace..."

Did you really mean to say that?

RockyMcNuts• 9 years ago

12/17/2015 “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.”

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-...

1/28/16/ Spicer: “Trump is doing what he said he would do”

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316730-spicer-tru...

(also, Trump retweeting various people saying he's keeping all his promises in this regard)

1/29/16 Trump: “This is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting.”

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/29/14432362/tr...

Sure, it's not targeted at Muslims, it's a ban for people from certain Muslim-majority countries with exceptions for non-Muslims.

And then you have Giuliani saying Trump asked him how to do a Muslim ban legally, and Flynn Jr. calling it a necessary Muslim ban

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9GKL6i38pI

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/michael-g-flynn-delete...

Gonna go out on a limb and say anyone 'of sound mind' as you say would say, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck...

anigbrowl11• 9 years ago

Well there was that thing about Trump calling for a total Muslim ban a little over a yer ago: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-...

Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on. [...]

It's entirely reasonable to consider a politician's stated aspirations as well as their more limited actions in office, since the latter are often incremental steps towards a larger goal.

Please don't argue but trying to bury people in irrelevant facts. That tactic is called a Gish Gallop and makes you look like you're arguing in bad faith. Considering the administration's on-again off-again relationship with basic concepts of truth and fact, nitpicking arguments are best avoided.

It cannot be that the administration gets to decide when to cite facts and figures or when to make sweeping and inaccurate generalizations; if critics are to be held to a different standard of truth from the administration, then we have a government that asserts exclusive domain over the notion of truth itself. Are you sure that's something you want to support?

hsod2• 9 years ago

Would you be OK with calling it a "partial Muslim ban"? While it's true that it doesn't ban all Muslims, it seems obvious that it was crafted to ensure that the vast majority of the people it banned would be Muslims.

794CD01• 9 years ago

Those can both be true simultaneously - the president asked for something, and ended up implementing something slightly different - because what he originally asked for was likely unconsitutional.

becarefulyo3• 9 years ago

I don't understand why it's even controversial to call this a Muslim ban. It's a ban on people from Muslim majority countries, except for religious minorities in those countries.

cle• 9 years ago

Because merely calling it a Muslim ban removes any plausible deniability and exposes the government to all kinds of legal challenges.

If the government wants to do some bad or unethical, they won't be straight about it. They will use euphemisms and "newspeak" to disguise their intentions (e.g. "enhanced interrogation").

It's akin to parallel construction. Start with the party that is presumed guilty, then work backwards to change your actions and arguments so that you can still persecute the party but without obviously breaking any laws.

m3rc5• 9 years ago

Peter Thiel is as usual, a snake. He knows he's spreading lies but his support for this administration trumps any dedication to the truth.

TorKlingberg7• 9 years ago

Peter Thiel also said that we shouldn't take Trump's words literally. Unfortunately nobody told the border guards enforcing his executive order.

makomk4• 9 years ago

Rudy Giuliani was also very publicly snubbed by Trump when it came time to appoint people to his administration, so it's not clear if this is actual inside information, revenge, or both.

pinewurst• 9 years ago

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

So between Peter Thiel and the ACLU, I think we have some 1st rate minds at YC.

labster• 9 years ago

Heh, sick burn.

w00tw00tw00t2• 9 years ago

Signed up to help. If you are serious about helping, I urge you to do so as well.

rexreed• 9 years ago

Does YC have a page of their particular positions on various political matters which guides their decisions on which non-profits to support and which ones not to? I'm genuinely interested in reading a "platform" as it were on what YC believes and is willing to support.

ErikVandeWater5• 9 years ago

Yes this is somewhat dangerous for YC. I would like to see that this was planned before November and their support was not determined by who the president turned out to be. Combined with the outspoken politics of Paul Graham1, I get the feeling people who identify as conservatives may not feel welcome at YC.

1 http://twitter.com/paulg

EDIT: I changed "conservatives" to "people who identify as conservatives" to clarify. Some replies below referred to the philosophical conservatism, which is somewhat different.

JCzynski3• 9 years ago

Authoritarians are very possibly not welcome. Non-authoritarian members of the religious right, cultural conservatives, etc. are very likely welcome. (And of course any variety of libertarian.)

eddieroger2• 9 years ago

The unfortunate thing is that the ACLU should be non-partisan and only fighting for those who are having their rights threatened. It just so happens that in the last week or so, it was Conservatives doing the threatening. There aren't a lot of incidents in recent memory of liberals taking away rights from folks, so you get a slant of ACLU vs Conservatives. The irony of wanting a small government I guess.

rattray2• 9 years ago

Conservatives of a libertarian bent are likely to feel quite welcome, and AFAICT have always been well-represented.

brandon272• 9 years ago

I get the feeling conservatives may not feel welcome at YC.

What we are seeing over the last week and what is expected to be coming from the Trump administration in the near future have little to do with liberal vs. conservative. I know many conservatives who are outright horrified by what they are seeing.

justinlaster2• 9 years ago

I get the feeling conservatives may not feel welcome at YC.

Sounds like a personal problem. "Oh no, an organization that defends people's liberties is making me feel uncomfortable!"

ajamesm7• 9 years ago

The ACLU, in the past week, received as much $ in online donation as it has over the past six years.

Cash talks and bullshit walks. Tell me, if you're a free-market conservative, why YC or the ACLU should disregard such a resonating and clear message from the market.

nickparker3• 9 years ago

I think neither PG's tweets nor this ACLU post are actually against the broad ideas of conservatism.

If you believe in individual freedom, small government, low taxes, and heavy use of market solutions, I haven't seen anything from YC that runs against those ideas.

The issues YC seems to oppose are nativism/xenophobia and authoritarianism. Opposition to the former is a wholly rational decision to preserve YC's access to the best international founders, and authoritarianism presents slightly more round-about problems for YC in reduced press freedom and tighter relationships between large corporations and government, both of which make life more difficult for startups.

Lastly, there exists a wing of American conservatism which is significantly more racist, sexist, and homophobic than the national average. I think you're right, that group would not feel welcome at YC nor should they. Their exclusion is based on their personal views, which they are capable of changing. Their inclusion would make others feel excluded on the basis of immutable traits, which is far worse in my opinion.

TorKlingberg7• 9 years ago

* Much of pg's writing leans libertarian or even conservative.

* Many conservatives do not support Trump's policies. Conservativism is traditionally about preserving stable society and carefully evaluating changes before radically changing society.

I think many took a wait-and-see approach to Trump. Sure, he was bombastic during the campaign and said a lot of bad things, but he's a screwd businessman. Surely he will get some decent advisors and not breaks things.

The last week has made it clear that is not the case. Trump and Bannon are determined to reshape society in their own image, and that is really scary. It is clear Trump's executive orders have not been run past anyone sensible, and they make no attempts to limit unnecessary damage to people's lives.

chasing• 9 years ago

The ACLU didn't have $24m burning a hole in their pocket four months ago.

Also, conservatives need to get off their "persecuted" high horse for a second and take a look around themselves. Donald Trump is the one butt-fumbling his way into empowering organizations like the ACLU by scaring the shit out of right-minded people. As these groups experience spikes in popularity and cash, they're going to reach out and start working on new initiatives.

mattnewton2• 9 years ago

Many conservatives, from traditional big government conservatives like John McCain and Dick Cheney to small government advocates like the Koch brothers are coming out against this change. It is not a clean partisan divide.

Don't let the people kissing up because they have to work with him fool you. This is broadly alarming in many conservative circles too.

https://www.google.com/amp/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/id...

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/4652905/koch...

notgood2• 9 years ago

Did any president before a few days ago denied the entry to green card residents? No? Well they may think it's a sign of things to come so it's rational to start supporting the ACLU now; and sure there are another million problems they turned a blind eye before, doesn't mean they have to turn a blind eye to all the problems forever

cdelsolar3• 9 years ago

Please, a startup incubator/accelerator, and the SV culture, are the pinnacle of capitalism.

mschuster91• 9 years ago

Combined with the outspoken politics of Paul Graham1, I get the feeling people who identify as conservatives may not feel welcome at YC.

Peter Thiel is still a partner at YC. So there is someone high-profile openly allied with Trump at YC, YC is not as radical left-wing as some people try to paint it.

alpha_squared• 9 years ago

Isn't the ACLU non-partisan?

beat2• 9 years ago

Yes, they are. The thing that really put them on the map was decades ago, when they defended the right of Nazis to march in the heavily Jewish community of Skokie, IL.

jessriedel3• 9 years ago

Nominally, but so are other organizations that are clearly partisan in practice. I don't think anyone disputes that members of the ACLU are overwhelmingly democrats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union...

It's hard to imagine this doesn't have real-world consequences, e.g., strategically choosing to not defend right-leaning speech as vigorously as left-leaning speech.

monochromatic6• 9 years ago

The ACLU sometimes supports a worthy cause, but it's basically just a left-leaning political organization. I understand that's particularly trendy right now, and anyone who supports Trump is a pariah in Silicon Valley... but come on.

Would YC be donating directly to the Democratic party if that got the same favorable tax treatment?

vermontdevil• 9 years ago

left-leaning?

Supporting the Constitution is left-leaning? Sign me up!

And yes they don't defend the 2nd amendment because there are already two large organizations focused on that.

justin664• 9 years ago

And yes they don't defend the 2nd amendment because there are already two large organizations focused on that.

I think it's accurate to say that the lawyers at ACLU have a position on the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment (viewable on their website) which is not consistent with the views commonly offered by the NRA. The ACLU would only go to court to help fight a 2nd Amendment violation where they believed one existed, so that's part of the difference.

monochromatic6• 9 years ago

They don't defend the 2nd amendment because they're left-leaning. Like I said.

gadders3• 9 years ago

YC/Sam A hosted a fund raiser for the Democratic party/Obama [1]

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/20/president-obama-will-headl...

equalarrow• 9 years ago

How are your rights 'trendy'?

I tend to stay out of politics, and don't really label people as such, but Trump is a bad guy. I'm happy to donate engineering time to the ACLU.

sp3323• 9 years ago

"Trump is a bad guy". Well OK but the ACLU does more than just fight Trump. It's possible that people have mixed feelings about those various things.

AsyncAwait3• 9 years ago

The ACLU tends to not pick political sides.

JCzynski3• 9 years ago

This has been decreasingly true in recent years, in fairness. They've still been standing up for the principles of a liberal society consistently, but it's gotten polarized like everything else.

monochromatic6• 9 years ago

It only looks that way from an extreme-left perspective.

del82• 9 years ago

Can you explain specifically how the ACLU is a left-leaning political organization, rather than an apolitical nonprofit?

MK999• 9 years ago

They sue anything that looks like Christianity, that makes them "left-leaning".

jrmurad3• 9 years ago

Some "left-leaning" stances they take where I'm hard-pressed to see how they are defending civil rights, if not outright violating those of one party for the benefit of another:

affirmative action: https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/affirmative-actio...

voter id (are all the other countries that have this violating their citizens' civil rights?): https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...

religious liberty (an employer engages in voluntary exchange... not much of a stretch to see it as a violation of rights to force them to pay for something which they consider blasphemous): https://action.aclu.org/secure/your-boss-has-no-business-you...

abortion (Roe v Wade federal overreach vs States' Rights... this and other issues like marijuana laws can be left to the States but "leftists" generally prefer a stronger central government over States as "laboratories of democracy"): https://www.aclu.org/issues/reproductive-freedom/abortion

ACA/"Obamacare": I couldn't find anything about their position on this issue but, if they were only defending civil rights rather than also being a "left-leaning political organization", I think they'd actively oppose forcing people to pay corporations for products they don't want.

mst3• 9 years ago

The ACLU sued to protect the rights of neo-nazis.

That's not how most "just a left-leaning political organization"s behave.

problems5• 9 years ago

I had great respect for them when they were doing that kind of thing and standing up for everyone's right to speech. Do they still engage in that? If I recall correctly they haven't had cases like that in decades.

All their recent cases in my memory are left-leaning at least, which, while they do represent many good goals in my opinion, is understandably a political slant.

jonstewart2• 9 years ago

The ACLU has a foundation that can accept tax-deductible contributions, but it's limited in what it can do. Donations to the main ACLU, like my monthly contribution, are not tax-deductible. YC, did you give to the foundation or to the main ACLU?

xeromal• 9 years ago

The ACLU has defended the rights of neo-nazis and pedophiles. They defend people that no one wants to defend including democrats.

monochromatic6• 9 years ago

Recently?

a-guest• 9 years ago

The murder of innocent children in or out of the womb is neither civil nor American; nor is it an expression of liberty in terms of doing what is right. But if the ACLU calls this "liberty", that is terrifying.

"There is a healthy and an unhealthy love of animals: and the nearest definition of the difference is that the unhealthy love of animals is serious. I am quite prepared to love a rhinoceros, with reasonable precautions: he is, doubtless, a delightful father to the young rhinoceroses. But I will not promise not to laugh at a rhinoceros. . . . I will not worship an animal. That is, I will not take an animal quite seriously: and I know why. Wherever there is Animal Worship there is Human Sacrifice. That is, both symbolically and literally, a real truth of historical experience."

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/421961/wherever-there-a...

https://www.aclu.org/blog/ag-gag-not-just-about-animal-welfa...

abecedarius• 9 years ago

Downvoted because of the false implication of favorable tax treatment. Donations to the ACLU are not deductible, though they have an associated foundation you can donate to instead: https://action.aclu.org/what-difference

muninn_6• 9 years ago

Although I think the American Civil Liberties Union is incredibly valuable and I'm glad they have a lot more money now to fight for the American people, I'm questioning all of this.

Where was the outpouring of funding when black people were being gunned down by cops from West Coast organizations? Where has YCombinator been as our own impoverished African-Americans are getting slaughtered in the streets of Chicago? Why weren't we funding the ACLU to help these people? I haven't seen Google talk about this, or AirBnB offer support to widows of veterans whose spouse commits suicide and has left them with nothing.

I feel for immigrants from war-torn countries, especially having been there myself. Maybe I'm too cynical and look at these moves (AirBnB, Uber, Google, etc...) as marketing moves. I wish we cared more about homeless people, people in West Virginia and Kentucky who have lost their jobs and got drenched in opiates without any protests from anybody, or veterans who can't pay their VA bills. Idk.

I know this comment will be unpopular, and that's ok. I tend to care more about those who I feel (whether true or not) are being left behind because that's who I am.

sankho2• 9 years ago

I'm with you 100%.

By coincidence I made a site to direct people to various charities on HN when this post came up - it went nowhere of course.

If you're looking for an option to support other charities w/o feeling like you're actually just buttressing a corporation's branding --> https://helpsavetheusa.com/

sankho2• 9 years ago

Also shameless shill for upvotes --> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13531669

cosinetau• 9 years ago

The best time to plant a tree was yesterday. I can personally forgive them, but we need to hold these players accountable in the future. If marketing moves is what incentives them, we need to make it impossible to move us without extended action.

Edit: Ya'll are cynical Jedis.

seanmcdirmid2• 9 years ago

The best time to plant a tree was yesterday, the second best time to plant a tree is today. Being proactive is better than being reactive, but we shouldn't poohoo the value of being at least reactive now and maybe proactive in the future.

koolba5• 9 years ago

The best time to plant a tree was yesterday. I can personally forgive them, but we need to hold these players accountable in the future. If marketing moves is what incentives them, we need to make it impossible to move us without extended action.

I feel like I hear that line on a daily basis but it doesn't factor in reality.

To stretch the metaphor further (for illustration), if the lot where you'll be planting the tree is being bulldozed today, yesterday is the worst day to plant a tree.

gthtjtkt4• 9 years ago

The best time to plant a tree was when they were dropping bombs on them.

The second best time is when it becomes hip and trendy to plant trees, apparently.

spangry• 9 years ago

I think this is the most pragmatic approach. Quite frankly, these players' intent is irrelevant. It's the results of their actions that matter. However, it is useful to understand the incentives that they respond to, particularly when we have the ability to use those incentives to elicit further good acts in the future.

Many 'activists' seem to think that simply having good intentions and beliefs makes one a 'good' person (and many seem to stop at that point). But as it turns out, a starving person derives no nourishment from your internal happy feelings. I'm glad to see YCombinator understands this very basic fact and is taking action to better society, rather than just sitting around thinking lofty thoughts and feeling good about itself.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Or, in the alternate form: "Hell is full of good meanings, but Heaven is full of good works."

nopcode• 9 years ago

I share your sentiment. It seems to me (I'm European) that bashing Trump is just a fancy, hipster thing to do.

andy_ppp3• 9 years ago

I find this sort of thing chilling when Steve Bannon talks about the alt-right being in power for 50 years and has been (pre election) doing 3 small town speeches per week telling people (by my guess including border control, the police, the Sarah Palin supporters of this world) that they are the thin blue line as society falls apart.

Watch: https://youtu.be/7nTd2ZAX_tc

ssully• 9 years ago

I have no idea how supporting the ACLU or the ACLU's actions this weekend could ever be considered Trump bashing or 'hipster'.

soundwave1062• 9 years ago

Perhaps it is, to some extent. Unfortunately, it sometimes it takes a direct threat to get people motivated.

But that's human nature. Trump has done an awful lot to raise the ACLU's profile recently and ultimately this will be for a better good.

The ACLU has long been a strong advocate against police abuse (one web link of many: https://action.aclu.org/secure/stop-police-killing-communiti...), and the ACLU is participated in combating opiate abuse that emphasize treatment over jail (example: http://www.aclu-wa.org/story/task-force-issues-ground-breaki...). So while Silicon Valley may be reacting mainly to the executive order, support for the ACLU will help address these issues as well.

One other comment: I'll add that criticism of Trump is not just coming from the "hipster" left. I've noticed, for instance, that the Cato Institute, a very well notable libertarian think tank, is taking a hostile stance towards the Trump EO (https://www.cato.org/). This isn't a surprising stance frankly, but in a nation where politics is often thought of as binary (Cato is sometimes incorrectly generalized in this binary as "right wing"), sometimes the subtle nuances are missed.

ffef• 9 years ago

Where was the outpouring of funding when black people were being gunned down by cops.. You can't compare apples to oranges.

Sakes• 9 years ago

As far as I have observed, the only thing people consistently respond to is pain. This can be done through the introduction / removal / or threat of pain. It'd be nice if we all empathized more with other people's pain, but that doesn't appear to be the culture that we live in. Maybe there are cultures that do elsewhere, but I am unaware of them.

But I do have a question for you, when the interests of those with influence align with the ignored, why would your initial reaction be a negative one?

becarefulyo3• 9 years ago

So your argument is that if you didn't do what was right before, you shouldn't do what's right now?

muninn_6• 9 years ago

The other problems still exist and in my opinion are far worse. My argument is that we should prioritize problems like those over the current outcry.

TallGuyShort• 9 years ago

I'm all for doing what's right now, but let's try and address the root of the problem instead of continuing to have partisan, knee-jerk reactions. There's way too many Democrats calling out Trump who have STILL not said a peep about the weapons we funnel into these civil wars or the bombs we drop ourselves, or the rest of the screwed up immigration process, none of which Obama did much to slow down. I began and finished the process of immigration to the US under well-established Democrat presidencies, and all of the things that people are saying is evil on principle about Trump's plan are things I had to go through. My citizenship interview was almost entirely an ignorant interrogation about my religious and reproductive choices. There's a lot of things in my documentation that should be a yellow flag to someone screening immigrants, and none of it got brought up. Only my religion and number of kids. My family members had to return back to our country and retry multiple times because of ridiculous bureaucracy, also fleeing a civil war. But now that Trump does it, we're marching? Great. But when a Democrat gets back into office I'll be pissed if everyone forgets their principles and keeps funneling power to the executive because it suits them at the time.

alphonsegaston• 9 years ago

It's good to be skeptical and this may very well be a good marketing strategy. But at the moment, we're facing an fast-moving onslaught of authoritarianism, and the ACLU is one of the only legal defenses we have against it. If YCombinator, right now, wants to help stop it, I support them in doing so. We can cross other bridges of criticism when we come to them.

CodeSheikh• 9 years ago

Just because ACLU is late along with most of the communities and people in realizing things they could have done better that does not mean we need to question their every future step for the betterment of the society. Along with your positive critique, you can donate to them or any other org. of your choice and make sure your voice is heard. Oh btw ACLU was always active with whatever limited funds they had. . Please try researching on them.

ra1n853• 9 years ago

Because it's virtue signalling. Nevermind that Chicago had more murders in 2016 than New York and Los Angeles combined, or that there's a rampant opiate epidemic across wide swaths of the country - this is a cause with visibility among the well heeled coastal elites. Where were these same people when we undermined and bombed the governments of the countries these immigrants are fleeing from?

geofft3• 9 years ago

I thought "virtue signaling" meant loudly expressing sentiments to enhance your perceived moral standing. If you actually put your money where you mouth is, a) is it still virtue signaling, and b) what's wrong with it?

jblow• 9 years ago

Accusing someone of "virtue signalling" instantly ends any possibility for reasonable discussion, because it's a stark violation of the Principle of Charity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

On a meta-level, invoking "virtue signalling" is itself a signal that you want to ad-hominem the human subject rather than discuss and resolve the issues.

It is the opposite of rationality, and it's a bit weird that so many People Who Think They Are Rational are into the idea.

ucha4• 9 years ago

I am disappointed by these kind of comments. Being contrarian just for the sake of it doesn't get us anywhere. We cannot anytime someone does something good ask why something we consider better wasn't previously done.

enitihas• 9 years ago

I don't think he is being contrarian just for the sake of it. He is just using the platform to raise awareness about issues which are serious but don't make the same impact into public discussions and don't get similar levels of support. There is nothing bad in bringing more issues to light, and now seems the perfect time for this when the public appetite is ready for such issues.

ihsw5• 9 years ago

There's plenty of evidence pointing towards liberal opposition to Trump's policies being purely contrarian despite their merit. Will you speak up then? Will you point out the hypocrisy and double-standards?

tptacek6• 9 years ago

Asking why things were done in the past is unproductive. Asking why more things aren't being done in the present isn't.

wpietri3• 9 years ago

It is not contrarian. It's a valuable reminder.

A bit of historical context: America was founded in white supremacy. [1] It did better after the Civil War in the Reconstruction [2], and then things got worse again, with Jim Crow [3] in the south and ethnic cleansing everywhere else [4]. The Civil Rights Act [5] marked an era of improvement (sometimes called the Second Reconstruction [6]), but things have recently gotten worse, to the extent that many see us as needing a third Reconstruction [7].

This does not happen mostly through planned racial injustice. It mainly happens through ignorance and a convenient blindness to uncomfortable facts. We help people familiar and dear to us, and ignore the ones who aren't.

I think it's great that Silicon Valley came out strongly in favor of immigrants. They're familiar to us, and we'd be monsters to ignore our neighbors, our co-workers, our ancestors. But muninn_'s right, we have been ignoring some other pretty big injustices. And the ones muninn_ mentioned are groups historically underrepresented in tech. It's no coincidence that we started here.

As we boldly support immigrants, it's a good time to ask, "Oh, who might we have forgotten?" Companies are communities, embedded in a society. This week, we are stepping up to that responsibility. There's nothing wrong with thinking a little about what that really means.

[1] e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Era

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Reconstruction

[7] https://thinkprogress.org/rev-barber-moral-change-1ad2776df7...

CydeWeys12• 9 years ago

Maybe I'm too cynical and look at these moves (AirBnB, Uber, Google, etc...) as marketing moves.

I strongly disagree that this is purely for marketing. As someone working for one of the aforementioned companies, we are all aghast at how quickly this administration has jumped to eroding everything we believe in. These companies' moves are motivated by very real horror at the US going down a dark path.

The worst you could say about these actions is that they are self-interested, as the Muslim ban affects a lot of my coworkers in a very negative way that, say, inner city violence in Chicago does not. But it's definitely not so cynical as to be mere marketing moves.

JonFish85• 9 years ago

"eroding everything we believe in."
"the Muslim ban"

This sort of exaggeration probably doesn't help anyone.

muninn_6• 9 years ago

"This temporary hold on people entering the country from one of 7 countries for 90 days affects a lot of my coworkers"

And then "I don't care about the dozens of black people gunned down every day"

Seems a little selfish no? This is exactly the same mentality that Trump supporters had, just exchange Americans with coworkers and refugees with black people.

Maybe they aren't purely marketing moves, but I just have a hard time with it. Why can't Sergey show solidarity with our black community, who make up a large percentage of Americans, but can show up to protest in person for a temporary restriction on new people entering the US on top of the 120 day restriction that already exists?

laurent123456• 9 years ago

This logic (people should do nothing today because they did nothing yesterday) doesn't make any sense, and I don't get why it keeps coming up every time something related to Trump's policy comes up.

mhink• 9 years ago

Because it's a rhetorical tactic, not an argument based on logic. And it's tailored directly towards getting the Left to "sit down and shut up".

bmelton2• 9 years ago

Not to speak for the OP, but at least for me, I'm seeing a lot of my friends all of a sudden up in arms over policies that Obama (and Bush, and in some cases earlier than that even) got crickets for.

Admittedly, I'm not trying to compare apples to apples, and I'm the furthest thing from a Trump supporter, and it's absolutely amazing that the media have finally grown into their role of a check and balance against the government, but all too often, that means that they do so with carelessly chosen words that misrepresent the issue, and they act like it's new.

The problem with acting like it's new and giving a pass to handsomer / more liked / partisan presidents of yore is that once Trump is out of office, everyone will start to be complacent again.

Standing up for your rights is the job of the citizenry no matter who is president, and holding our elected officials' collective feet to the fire is what we're supposed to be doing all the time. If it took electing Trump to get people engaged, so be it, but let's not pretend that passing what effectively amounts to law with "a pen and a phone" is Trump's idea, or that people weren't cheering on the last president when he chose to do so, or that it's in any way a good thing to remove the checks and balances branches of the government are supposed to be providing against their co-equal branches.

philipov• 9 years ago

I think that's not an accurate portrayal of their position. They're not saying one should continue doing nothing, they're instead trying to be gatekeepers of virtue. They're saying "You shouldn't get to have good publicity from this when it's convenient for you."

Which is open to a completely different criticism, but is emphatically not saying people should continue doing nothing.

bbctol3• 9 years ago

I don't think the argument is "people should do nothing today because they did nothing yesterday." I think the argument is "Just because you're doing something today, doesn't mean your organization doesn't have issues, and the fact that you didn't do something yesterday is useful data about your priorities."

maxander• 9 years ago

Before November 2016 it was easy to be complacent- there was a sense that people with more power than us were doing the right thing to fix any given problem, so our own contribution felt less urgent. We don't have that now.

Eyas• 9 years ago

My take on this: I'm glad that the "right thing" to do is the popular thing to do. In the past, there have been trends of conspicuous consumption, bigger as better, etc., to convey social status and desirability. Mainstream culture has been moving in a direction where inconspicuous consumption, environmental sustainability, and social responsibility, and companies have been following.

Whether we do things because it looks good or is right is an interesting question. But to me, it is similar to the question of "are we kind because it makes us feel better? or because its right?".

katm• 9 years ago

You can be cynical about us bringing in the ACLU, but in the words of Maya Angelou: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

zymhan• 9 years ago

That's a great quote.

Also, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

sidlls14• 9 years ago

In that case, I fully expect to see continued activity on this front even after the next Democratic adminstration and congress continues the Bush-Obama-Trump programs that are (finally) meeting resistance.

I won't hold my breath waiting for that, though. Usually what happens is that when one's favored party regains power the criticism suddenly disappears.

jaypaulynice3• 9 years ago

But where is the response to homelessness in SF right in YC's backyard? This sounds like PR more than anything! Why take advantage of a bad situation?

pmoriarty• 9 years ago

I am extremely proud to see YC support the ACLU.

Of all of the things I've seen YC do, this is by far the greatest.

efnx• 9 years ago

I agree with you that we should all cast a wider net WRT the charities we pick, but I'll play devils advocate because that's what I do.

There are too many worthy issues. An organization like ycombinator or like its investments (Airbnb, Uber, etc) aren't altruistic by design, but can choose to be when they see fit. That's not bad. Right now it fits because there's either some PR to be gained (like Lyft) or some looming threat to fight (H1B visas and immigration). A tactical move like this is still good for everyone even if its motivation isn't philanthropic. It's a win-win. We should look at it more as a strategic investment for the common good.

sp3323• 9 years ago

Not trolling, but I don't think those required the same magnitude of capital. Your examples didn't involve going up against the federal government. The ACLU got something like 24 million dollars in the last week, but the Koch brothers pledged to spend $300-400 million in the run-up to the 2018 elections. https://lasvegassun.com/news/2017/jan/28/koch-political-netw... (Worth noting the Koch network actually disagrees with Trump over the immigration ban https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01...)

gadders3• 9 years ago

I also wonder where they were when the Snowdon revelations of of the massive NSA spying campaign under Obama were released.

Overtonwindow• 9 years ago

...and this, in a nutshell, is why a lot of people voted for Trump.

phillmv• 9 years ago

You don't even have to go that far; half the people on these boards step over a homeless person to get to work every morning.

Why weren't we funding the ACLU to help these people?

Well, I think that's easy to answer. People care more about causes when it affects them personally.

For better or for worse, few of us are strict utilitarian maximizers. I haven't quite settled how I think about it, myself.

muninn_6• 9 years ago

You don't even have to go that far; half the people on these boards step over a homeless person to get to work every morning.

This is a spot on comment.

akras142• 9 years ago

100% - conservative in US means bugging homeless people to get away, vs liberal in US means letting homeless people rot on the street in peace.

As a Russian saying goes, "it's easy to notice a little chip in someone else's eye, but you won't even notice a log in your own".

jmclean• 9 years ago

Although I agree that there's been a frustrating lack of response to those issues, I think at least part of that muted response was a sense that these incidents were an aberration from a general trend of progress.

The reality that many people are waking up to is that social progress is not guaranteed and a passive approach is not enough.

I share your cynicism regarding many of the marketing moves by the companies you mentioned. At the same time, the fact that doing the right thing builds goodwill with a hopefully-majority highlights the importance of making our views and voices heard.

I might wish for a more high-minded motive form these companies. I also wish that it hadn't taken shock events to make the loss of rights feel real for most of America (though to be honest, I'm guilty of this too.)

But I'm excited to see people mobilizing, and will take the good outcomes where I can find them these days. Progress here could require an uneasy coalition.

AdmiralAsshat• 9 years ago

The ACLU has been fighting the good fight for impoverished black people as well. They happen to be in the spotlight at the moment due to the Trump immigration executive order, but it's not as though 100% of the funds raised by YC will go towards fighting the immigration ban. It will support their countless other ongoing legal battles as well.

They are an unqualified, categorically "good" organization that is deserving of your donations. I'm personally of the opinion that a charitable act should not be diminished or castigated because one picked this time to donate and not other times.

Put another way, if a guy shows up to volunteer at a soup kitchen, I'm going to thank him for his time, not shout at him, "Where were you when we had the flood of Katrina refugees to feed!"

jMyles7• 9 years ago

They are an unqualified, categorically "good" organization

The ACLU is wonderful, no doubt about that. But I think some people do put an asterisk next to the group because of their (obviously somewhat strange) categorization of the protections of the 2nd amendment as outside the scope of American civil liberties.

chimeracoder5• 9 years ago

They happen to be in the spotlight at the moment due to the Trump immigration executive order, but it's not as though 100% of the funds raised by YC will go towards fighting the immigration ban. It will support their countless other ongoing legal battles as well

On that note - do we actually know that the YC funds are generally available to the ACLU? Oftentimes when non-profits receive large donations, the donor specifies the usage of the funds (usually by specifying a general area that the non-profit is working on, or donating to a specific fund)[0]. These restrictions are legally binding.

I'm not opining on the use of funds here - I'm just curious if YC donated to a specific fund in the ACLU.

[0] Those who went to colleges will know this firsthand - the donation solicitations you receive usually give options like "for financial aid", or "for the $BUILDING_NAME construction project"

kickscondor• 9 years ago

While I think white bias is still an issue - seems like this is what you're pointing at exclusively, right? - I think a possibly bigger issue here - and the answer you're looking for - is that Obama was a classy face for progressives to look at when these government encroachments (and - in many cases - outright killings) came up.

Now that Trump is the face of this disease, there is no pretense. The face lines up with the actions. This allows everyone to freely mobilize on their issues without feeling like they are stepping on toes. Classy, wingtip toes, that is.

Now, I'm not a Trump hater - I don't think he's Hitler. In fact, I do thank him - he did drop the pretense on his own. But I also am enjoying seeing America radicalized in a way that I hoped would happen with the Snowden disclosures fell.

akras142• 9 years ago

100%

marwatk• 9 years ago

I'm not 100% sure what all the ACLU does so correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought they were a bunch of lawyers? What can they do for Chicago or people shot by police? Who could they sue and for what to fix those problems?

Isn't this like complaining about Habitat for Humanity not doing enough to prevent forest fires?

mtalantikite3• 9 years ago

The profiling and killing of black men by police is most certainly a civil rights issue.

The NYC division of the ACLU has done work on the illegal and racist stop and frisk law that was in place here, for example.

Govannon• 9 years ago

Not exactly. THe ACLU actually does work in the area being discussed [0]. I believe the criticism is that people did not donate for that reason, not that the ACLU doesn't do anything about it; the ACLU does quite a bit.

[0] https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice

bbctol3• 9 years ago

They'd sue the police department. The ACLU sues police departments for violations of civil rights constantly.

kiloreux• 9 years ago

I think it's pretty easy to see the answer to your question. Black people and cops violence don't hurt their interests. If black people will be killed then the effect on Google/AirBnB/Ycombinator will be low. However seeing that the ban on foreign countries visa (I expect a lot more countries to be added). It would be harder for tech companies that rely basically on technical talent from outside US.

facetube4• 9 years ago

You will always be able to come up with another problem to use in a "where were you all when..." scenario, because any given organization's resources are finite and cannot address all problems.

Further, the ACLU is a civil liberties advocacy organization and is not well-equipped to handle complex socioeconomic issues such as gun violence or homelessness or health care. It is outside the stated mission.

jstalin3• 9 years ago

Of course you know the answer: The ACLU is a political organization.

Edit: Not a peep out of the ACLU when the Obama administration permanently ended the Cuban refugee program and many refugees in Mexico are now being deported back to Cuba because there is no chance of them being accepted in the US. 60 day pause on refugees from seven middle-eastern countries identified and signed into law by the Obama administration? MELTDOWN.

facetube4• 9 years ago

With a stated intent to ban Muslims. Donald Trump and his advisors have gone on record for months stating that their intent is to ban Muslims. Many of his staff have asked publicly if there was a legal way to ban Muslims, and stated that they were seeking a way. This is well-documented in the US mainstream press, with video evidence of Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani stating this in their own words.

The rationale given for banning these Muslim majority countries by Mr. Trump included 9/11. Not a single 9/11 attacker came from these countries. Claiming a material connection is a lie. They claim Obama is responsible for picking them – yet he never banned an entire country in a fit of collective punishment, merely ordered additional monitoring and procedures. Last weekend, valid green cards were cancelled without a documented or individualized reason. This is a vast difference in policy.

People resent Mr. Trump because he lies. He repeatedly lies to Americans. He presents suspect reasoning, misrepresents documented facts, and then claims he didn't in the presence of video evidence. That is a far more critical flaw than any policy error could bring.

digitalneal2• 9 years ago

Maybe because the ACLU is about American civil liberties.

ceejayoz• 9 years ago

Not a peep out of the ACLU when the Obama administration permanently ended the Cuban refugee program...

This is an odd complaint. The Obama administration ended Cuba's special, weird immigration status where touching land magically bypassed most of the immigration process. Cuban refugees now have to go through the same process as any other refugee - they have the same rights as any other asylum seeker would.

diydsp• 9 years ago

https://www.aclu.org/blog/speakeasy/ferguson-everytown-usa

https://www.aclu.org/feature/aclu-response-ferguson

Ferguson and related issues are important and the ACLU did respond in important ways I referenced above.

However, we're now seeing an umbrella of issues targeting an even larger number of groups of people.

jacquesm5• 9 years ago

By your reckoning everybody that was standing by the sidelines should forever do so. Better to turn late than not at all, and YC and immigration policies are quite strongly linked, YC and people being gunned down in the streets less so.

character0• 9 years ago

Hopefully, people are setting up recurring payments that continue to show support for organizations like the ACLU. Then when the next travesty inevitably occurs, they are already supporting the good fight.

kobayashi• 9 years ago

Because although many terrible things occur every day, President Trump/Bannon are the most serious internal threats to the freedoms, safety, and security of Americans since WWII, and perhaps even earlier. Moreover, the threats they pose extend far beyond America's borders. The possibility of autocracy, illiberalism, and kleptocracy are real, and the many donors understand this. Liberal democracy is the foundation of human freedoms. I normally disagree with some prominent positions of the ACLU, but we're in an "all hands on deck" situation. It's different.

EnFinlay• 9 years ago

My guess is that up until now, the cause for these events has been hard to quantify and identify. Like your example of people in West Virginia and Kentucky who have lost their jobs and got drenched in opiates. Who do we rally against for that? You could argue that it's caused by automation, outsourcing, globalism, capitalism, local policy, state policy, federal policy, and at least a dozen other things. People don't band together against something that has just happened. Boiling the frog and all that.

Companies are throwing their hat into the ring on this issue because there is a clear and present threat with an immense amount of power. You can point to it and say "look, this is going to cause things that I'm not okay with, and I will stand against it". It's finally cut and dry. Evil exists and it can be fought.

Screw cynicism, that's the easy way to deal with these events.

bryanlarsen• 9 years ago

Exactly.

And those are also issues that everybody agreed are issues; it's the solutions where there was disagreement.

Trump's platform was that bribing corporations to keep jobs in America, loosening environmental regulation and tearing up TPP & NAFTA were the solutions for lost factory jobs.

Clinton's platform was that education, a social safety net and withdrawing from the TPP were the best solutions.

Fighting to build awareness of problems is a lot easier than agreeing on a solution.

PeterisP• 9 years ago

"Do Not Listen to What They Say, Look at What They Do" - simply treat it as evidence that yes, really, despite what some people might want, large parts of the society actually do care more about immigrants like the tech industry green card holders who got stuck in the airports than local homeless people or "people in West Virginia and Kentucky who have lost their jobs and got drenched in opiates".

It's obvious that this is the case. It's also obvious that some people are angry at this, they want America to clearly put their interests above the interests of immigrants, and that's part of why they voted for Trump.

criddell• 9 years ago

Where was the outpouring of funding when black people were being gunned down by cops from West Coast organizations? Where has YCombinator been as our own impoverished African-Americans are getting slaughtered in the streets of Chicago? Why weren't we funding the ACLU to help these people?

What answer are you looking for?

mtalantikite3• 9 years ago

They can show their intentions by not just stopping with their support of the ACLU. They can move to support other organizations, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, Earth Justice, Planned Parenthood, Sylvia Rivera Law Project, National Immigration Law Center, EFF, RAINN, and so many more.

cidibe• 9 years ago

Not to SPLC please. I have no idea what they are thinking with regard to criticism of Salafism.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/10/maa...

brandonb• 9 years ago

Here are a few efforts from the Y Combinator and broader tech communities that help with those goals.

On veterans, several YC alumni, after working on the healthcare.gov rescue team, went on to help start the US Digital Service (https://www.usds.gov/) and Nava (navahq.com), which are working on the VA backlog. Both organizations are hiring.

Within the broader tech community, companies like Nuna are working on Medicaid and the VA backlog. On policing, DJ Patil--former Greylock Data Scientist and one of the founders of Color, FFS--launched an initiative around police data and criminal justice during his time at the White House: https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/13/dj-patil-criminal-justice/

And, of course, Code for America in SOMA does lots of work with local governments and you can apply to be a Fellow: https://www.codeforamerica.org/

There's a lot more to do, and not all of these efforts are as well-known as they should be. But if you're looking to help, people in tech are working on these problems.

smacktoward• 9 years ago

Saving democracy isn't Pitchfork; nobody should be looking down on people just because they liked this band before it was cool. Just welcome them to the fan club -- and do what you can to make sure they keep their membership current after this rush of buzz wears off.

ProxCoques• 9 years ago

When you say "Where was the outpouring of funding when black people were being gunned down by cops" - what exactly do you imply by asking that question? That the parties involved are morally compromised such that they should not fund the ACLU and hire immigrants?

api• 9 years ago

I get what you're saying, but late is better than never.

pdkl95• 9 years ago

Where was [...]

In politics, I believe it's important to use the philosophy of "better late than never". Memes take time to diffuse into the population. It is better to encourage more participation in the future by accepting late arrivals. Attacking people that finally decided to participate can easily drive them away.

brandall10• 9 years ago

I think the major difference is this a new, chilling shift of civil liberties enacted by a political administration - whereas the issues surrounding race/homelessness in this country are pre-existing are having an increasing light shown on them.

egocodedinsol• 9 years ago

When you've convinced people to come to your side and donate money to it, demanding an apology for not coming sooner is a great strategy for revenge, but not a great one for your cause.

From an activist friend:

"Hearing leftists be like "ugh these protesters are so passionate about protesting now but I didn't see them protesting at BLM marches three years ago!" is one of those things that makes me wonder whether the left has been infiltrated by the CIA or whether the death-wish is native."

Kalium• 9 years ago

Given that the leftist death-wish showed up in revolutionary Russia, revolutionary France, and civil war Spain... we should seriously consider that it might be native.

tptacek6• 9 years ago

This is an entirely legitimate concern.

We're not meant to sit here stroking our chins and purring about the good deeds of our favorite companies. YC has an incredible position in Silicon Valley, built over a decade with the help and influence of people like us.

To whom much is given, much is required. I'm glad YC is helping ACLU out this winter. But ACLU took in more money in 1 day last week than NILC, the National Immigration Law Center, spends in a year. After they get done patting themselves on the back for the ACLU win, they should start figuring out how to help the smaller organizations that don't have ACLU's built-in advantages.

We're not here to feel sympathy for Y Combinator or Sam Altman. Most of us will never meet any of these people and, candidly, can't fathom the amount of financial success and security their position has brought them. More power to them! But they exist to us as abstractions, and rightly so, and any pressure we can bring to bear to more fully enlist them in the cause of shoring up our institutions and the rule of law is legitimate.

Push harder. Thanks for that comment.

muninn_6• 9 years ago

Thanks.

TorKlingberg7• 9 years ago

I am not comfortable having big companies as the protectors of civil liberties, but I'd rather have them fighting for freedom than against.

justin664• 9 years ago

No argument here, but...

But ACLU took in more money in 1 day last week than NILC, the National Immigration Law Center, spends in a year.

On the bright side, NILC's national budget went from $5.5MM to $7.5MM in the past few months thanks to increased donations.

eroo• 9 years ago

Where was the outpouring of funding [...]

Build the thing that needs funding. Then, seek support and apply.

VikingCoder• 9 years ago

The ACLU excels at mounting a legal defense.

I think when bad cops get off, it's because of bad (or absent) legal prosecution.

xenophonf• 9 years ago

I think these are all good questions. I can only answer for myself. The latest spate of racism and bigotry are what finally prompted me to commit to funding the ACLU on a regular basis. Prior to this election season I was more passive in my outlook, especially since neither major political party here in the U.S. aligns with my personal beliefs. Now I realize that was naive, and I don't want to wait, like Martin Niemöller did, to stand with my fellows against injustice and bigotry while we still have a chance to change things for the better.

stevens32• 9 years ago

Even if these are marketing moves they'll end up doing some good, which is definitely better than marketing moves which do nothing but market

the_watcher2• 9 years ago

So because this didn't happen earlier, when you wish it did, it can't be celebrated as a step in the right direction? Progress, by its very nature, takes time and is incremental. By this logic, no one should ever bother with anything like this, because it will just be seen as cynical "marketing."

RodericDay• 9 years ago

I agree, but it's not just a vague sense of unease that bothers me. It's actually very real and very concrete.

I am probably in the very far left-wing on this website in many regards, and what I see in a lot of this effusive and reflexive anti-Trumpism, is a lot of dubious and easily rolled-back gains. At climax radical right-wing activity, the GOP can just throw Donald Trump under the bus, and I think this would completely destroy any of the coalitions currently being built up against him, because the agreement on everything else is vague.

A lot of people really and deeply want to believe that the problem is Donald Trump himself, not the entire institution that props him up. I've seen numerous liberals (as opposed to leftists) on the internet openly and effusively embrace John McCain in his fashionable and phony role of maverick, the man who sang "Bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys. It's bewildering.

Another example is the Women's March. A friend of mine mentioned to a fellow protestor how important it was for her to fight for reproductive rights, and this woman's response was that it wasn't even about that, it's mostly just about Trump's disrespect towards women. And if you go on the movement's website, it's true. It doesn't mention planned parenthood or reproductive rights at all. Some people see it as a virtue, I think it is a strategic error.

Moreover, I think everyone on the broad left clearly understood Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" as a dogwhistle for bygone years largely characterized by white supremacy and a vision of the ideal normal nuclear family. The real surprising thing is that a lot of the impassioned, patriotic rallying cries against Trump today, by celebrities who describe themselves as patriots who were proud up until yesterday, are exactly the same: "Make America Great Again". It's just that they pine for the great Obama years instead.

There is almost zero mea-culpa about how it was possible that Trump got elected in the first place, and it's become so important to "stop Trump" that criticizing allies is a huge faux-pas. I don't see this building into a healthy strong movement.

nrjames• 9 years ago

Just because somebody or an organization failed to do something charitable in the past is no reason to criticize them for doing it in the future. I see this argument everywhere these days. Business change and their priorities change, just like people.

BickNowstrom• 9 years ago

Your concern/question is akin to a fallacy of relative privation. Another name for this style of argument is the "not as bad as"-argument.

To answer/satisfy your concern/question is impossible without inaction. The cases you mentioned already happened and are in the past. In essence you are proposing that YC does not act to help solve this current issue, because worse issues happened in the past, and YC did not act then, so it does not deserve to act now (at least, without being accused of hypocrisy and selective outrage). This mode of argumentation results in nothing happening to solve the current issue, just by virtue of there existing past worse issues. I don't think you are really in favor of this.

As for the marketing argument, sure, I can agree this playing a minor role in this decision. But not a major one. There is not much evidence I am aware of, or that you pointed out, signaling that YC does not act in good faith. Though absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence, this alone is not a solid basis for posing that any action that YC takes is purely profit/PR-driven.

Likely, this decision was not instigated out of marketing motives, but like any good decision for a for-profit company: it aligns with marketing motives.

Another angle to look at motives for problem solving: Is the crime of having a less than glamorous motive worse than the outcome of solving the problem? Donating to non-profits makes me feel good. Is this egocentrism worse enough to stop donating?

DiffEq• 9 years ago

So...what examples are there of blacks being gunned down and slaughtered? I think you do not know what the words you are using actually mean or you are doing it on purpose - which when you line your comments up with the facts; is very disingenuous.

anigbrowl11• 9 years ago

There wasn't as much money coming in because far fewer people were aware of the problem. But some people here have been banging on about such issues for years. The fact that economics outweighs justice is an unfortunate truth about human psychology.

Meantime, don't worry about it. It's normal to feel disoriented when the crowd stampedes where a few had previously blazed a lonely trail, but that's just how people are. Make the most of all this undirected energy.

rocqua• 9 years ago

The reason is that there has been progress or at worst stagnation on these issues. Moreover, what is happening now seems to be damaging the process of government itself. Whilst the things you mention are horrible, they are the result of bad government rather than an attack on the idea of government.

The above does ignore the rather obvious 'which issue affects affluent people more?' question.

leshow• 9 years ago

I don't care whether google, ycombinator, airbnb, etc acted out of their own self-interest or not (for marketing, as you say). I don't think anyone should. I'm not naive enough to think they would act altruistically, all I can hope for is that our interests align at least temporarily and they help.

Perhaps they could've done more in the situations you're describing, but it seems odd to chastise them now that they are. Would you rather they didn't ever help?

iron0012• 9 years ago

Nice concern trolling. The answer, as I'm sure you well know since you're arguing in bad faith, is that now is always the right time to do something good (like provide financial assistance to the ACLU). The argument that a good deed shouldn't be done now because it should have been done earlier instead is a ridiculous non sequitur.

mc32• 9 years ago

Not only that but these companies could provide vocational training to adult poor, as well as a conduit to tech education for both poor young blacks as well as poor whites as well as other poor Americans, but that's not sexy. However it is a very big problem for people who earn minimum wage or thereabouts and the unemployed.

If only they got as much enthusiastic and monetary support, we'd be a little more equal amongst ourselves.

mankash666• 9 years ago

There's one big difference to note. This defiance from the general public is less about one single issue (immigration) and more about a pattern of general disregard to law that the elected leader has shown. Instead of upholding the law, he's displayed a willingness to bend or even violate it to his own liking. The one thing that sets America apart economically is the predictability and uniform applicability of the rule of law. The moment this certainty disappears, which is what Trump is driving towards, no company can have a meaningful plan or strategy. From backing out of the TPP to violating privacy agreements with the EU, with every whimsical stroke of his pen he's thrusting America towards economic uncertainty.

The ACLU will hold his actions accountable to the law, and backing it is in the best economic and social interests of the US

tootie• 9 years ago

The ACLU is not an anti-crime organization is why. Nor is the ACLU a pro-immigration organization. They have repeatedly defended racism when it pertains to first amendment protections. Protecting constitutional rights is their mission and they do it very well. Solving gang violence is extremely difficult and there isn't a non-profit out there that has a clearly-defined path to solving it that can be supported with investment.

deeth_starr10• 9 years ago

Why don't you google "black lives matter ACLU". They have fought data collection about BLM protesters as well as defended people unlawfully detained at protests.

And we have been funding the ACLU individually. I like that YCombinator is now trying to help them as a org.

This comment is unpopular because you're just being a troll.

Edit: I get you are complaining about the recent swell of funding. And YCombinator probably skews immigrant. So I retract my troll comment. But know there are some white devs here who have supported ACLU and BLM. There's no easy answer. Racism is deep in the US (and actually most countries). It's not a zero sum game. Fighting Muslim racism (I know it's a religion) doesn't mean that we forget about other people of color. People have to unlearn the racism that their parents taught them.

Edit2: But black voters didn't turn out to vote for Hillary in support of Mexicans and Muslims. Why should we now help you? Serious question.

sueders1014• 9 years ago

In response to your second edit; the vast majority of black voters voted for Hillary, a significantly greater proportion than any other race. Hillary ended up with 88%[1] of the black vote. Furthermore turnout was down across all demographics in 2016.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/e...

sidlls14• 9 years ago

What makes you think Hillary supported or supports Mexicans or Muslims? I mean, granted she used those groups as a foil to beat up on Trump with but as a rule her past actions (e.g. as Sec. Of State) indicate at best a casual (and in my view cruel) indifference to those communities.

dieterrams• 9 years ago

I'm completely sympathetic to your point. Part of the problem is that the examples you give were, sadly, not enough of a deviation from the status quo to shock people into large scale action/donation. Trump's actions are, and he/Bannon/et al. also built up an ever increasing antagonism during the election cycle that wants an outlet.

mikeash• 9 years ago

My question is, what would you like to see happen? They can't go back in time and donate earlier. Pulling funding now would satisfy the desire for consistency, but doesn't seem like a good outcome.

1_2__3• 9 years ago

I don't think I've ever seen a more egregious case of concern trolling.

Here's a tip for you: Complaining about people taking action because you think they should have taken action is stupid. The ACLU is not a be-all end-all shield for everything you don't like and randomly picking your person moral crusades and demanding answers for why the ACLU isn't your personal army is naive and childish.

The ACLU is getting involved now and people are getting involved with the ACLU are doing so because they believe this administration represents an existential threat to the existence of the United States. They don't think that your personal crusades represent as much of a threat.

I'm sorry if you don't like that, but you are contributing the problem of the left. "You want to make the world better? Fuck you, I think this stuff is more important!" is insanity.

k-mcgrady2• 9 years ago

> Where was the outpouring of funding when...

I'm getting tired of seeing this sentiment. It's popped up constantly over the last few days. Just because people don't protest or support every single cause doesn't take anything away from support of this cause. In fact, people getting outraged enough to get involved for a change may be a good thing for other causes as if people see results they will be more likely to mobilise for other causes in the future.

stackptr• 9 years ago

Likely because people are emboldened to action when they see themselves in those who are being unjustly treated. It's no secret that Silicon Valley is not terribly representative of black people, veterans, and so on. If this is a fault of the folks at YC, I'd wager it's a fault of many many other people as well--so while I feel it is valuable to point out that issues, I don't think it's constructive at all to point at a good deed and ask, "Why not sooner?"

daveheq• 9 years ago

Where were you when all these things were happening? Were you asking YCombinator to address these issues? Are they supposed to address every social justice issue by anyone who thinks it should be addressed?

Be glad they're addressing anything, because they're a tech blog that should focus on tech issues, not every social justice issue on the planet, which there are already many blogs and campaigns and donation sites for.

andrepd• 9 years ago

I know this comment will be unpopular, and that's ok.

I would just like to say this kind of bait is agains the guidelines

svckr• 9 years ago

I know, it is hard to take anything at face value these days.

And asking the question why there is so much support now might not be popular, mainly because the answer is not really pretty.

I do, however, believe that there are some objective reasons for the current wave of support. Some I can think of:

- The events currently unfolding affect a lot more people directly.

- The threat has changed from being systemic but disorganized to intentionally organized. The official stance has shifted as well from being apologetic to "damn fucking right, we're going to eradicate you". (sorry about the language)

- People feel utterly helpless regarding politics in general. They might tell themselves (rightfully or not) that they can talk themselves out of trouble (if they even get into trouble being a good citizen and all). But they feel there's nothing they can personally do to stop DC from messing with their lives, so they put their trust into the hands of organizations like ACLU.

Also, I can personally say, my stance (as a European) went from an amused, uneasy "geez, America, get your shit together" to being actually concerned about western civilization.

baconner9• 9 years ago

It's sad that less people we're inspired to donate earlier, but IMO the whole "you're just realizing this now?" thing is unproductive.

Every person has a moment when they wake up and decided to step up, usually several. Litigating their decision process after he fact does nothing to help. Just say "thanks and welcome, now let's go wake up some others."

Momentum is important and true or not this kind of stuff serves only as a speedbump.

phantarch• 9 years ago

I think it's less about the immigrant situation in particular, and more about the way the new President is wielding his power blatantly in front of a nation who is _extremely_ divided when it comes to their opinion of him. It's not that those other issues are less or more important, but that they have a much less identifiable perpetrator. A prominent cause is more easily reducible.

It's a cry for someone or some organization to help guide us back to center. The ACLU just happens to be one of the best positioned organizations to fit this situation.

projectileboy• 9 years ago

While every issue you mentioned is important, the very discussion we're having starts with a base assumption that we live in a society governed by the rule of law. Coupled with the reality that YCombinator is not the Gates Foundation and has a finite amount of money and resources with which to attack problems, helping the ACLU seems to me a brilliant move by YC, to make the largest positive difference possible.

jza00425• 9 years ago

This is why people say all lives matter. Because nowadays the black thing is priority. no matter how serious other people's problems are, other people just get ignored because blacks always get attentions.

zaphar• 9 years ago

That is most definitely not why most people say all lives matter. They say all lives matter because it allows them to point at someone saying Black Lives Matter and make a moral judgement about them. Maybe some of the people saying All Lives Matter mean well but the vast majority of those saying it most definitely do not.

wocka• 9 years ago

Where has YCombinator been as our own impoverished African-Americans are getting slaughtered in the streets of Chicago?

Please stop with the hyperbole about Chicago. Yes, it has a problem, but it's beaten by St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, Cleveland, Newark, and Memphis for per 100k murder rate in 2016. Also, while the national per 100k murder rate has been trending upward lately, it is still lower than approximately 1965 to approximately 2007. [0]

0. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/u-s-cities-experienced-...

pdeuchler• 9 years ago

Probably because top SV companies recruit PHDs from the Levant at an order of magnitude more than they recruit from inner city Chicago?

How is this not obvious to the people here on HN? How do the people on here who constantly get holier than thou about demographics in tech not see the obvious machinations? Seriously, look around your office right now and then ask yourself again why top tech companies care more about immigrants than other oppressed groups.

What do you think is more likely, that Google genuinely cares about the immigration of farmers from Libya, or that they have a couple physics PHDs from Iran driving huge amounts of search revenue?

Corporations don't have morality, they have profit motives. YC doesn't give a shit about immigrant rights any more than the unjust deaths of african americans around the US, they care about attracting certain demographics to apply as founders.

comex• 9 years ago

What do you think is more likely, that Google genuinely cares about the immigration of farmers from Libya, or that they have a couple physics PHDs from Iran driving huge amounts of search revenue?

Why not both? If Sergey Brin joining the airport protest is any indication, the leadership genuinely cares about the injustice of the ban - but they're more inclined to act when issues affect them directly.

Nonetheless, Google did support Black Lives Matter, if not quite as loudly. For example, in November 2015, Google.org donated $2 million in grants for racial justice, part of which was supposed to "fund a tech-savvy, grassroots solution to end police violence against communities of color":

http://ellabakercenter.org/in-the-news/googleorg-invests-235...

Also, @google tweeted in support:

https://www.twitter.com/google/status/751174648855928834

mgce• 9 years ago

Corporations don't have morality, they have profit motives. YC doesn't give a shit about immigrant rights any more than the unjust deaths of african americans around the US, they care about attracting certain demographics to apply as founders.

I see no evidence this is the case, or that the founders of YC aren't human beings who also make decisions out of legitimate concern for the betterment of the world.

wtf_is_up• 9 years ago

Virtue signaling over poor Appalachian Americans or black-on-black violence is not very fashionable.

deeth_starr10• 9 years ago

Black people didn't turn out to support Hillary against the Trump racism against Mexicans and Middle-East countries. Now you complain?

deeth_starr10• 9 years ago

Look people, this is a problem [1]. We all need to stand together and not only for ourselves.

[1] http://www.phillytrib.com/news/black-voter-turnout-a-look-at...

wfunction• 9 years ago

One difference between current events and previous ones is that the current problems run all the way up to the president and Congress, whereas the previous ones did not. I suspect if Obama was the one ordering blacks to be gunned down and Congress was behind him the situation would've changed dramatically.

kmos17• 9 years ago

The ACLU is always active and protecting our rights, I do get the crying wolf fatigue and impression that a lot of this might seem questionable, but right now I think a lot of people are more motivated as this is not an issue of one specific group being targeted/needing help, but the very idea of democracy in America that is under attack by this administration. It is something they have publicly said (trump and bannon), everyone who believes in the constitution should be very worried at what is going on.

Hopefully we are all wrong and overreacting, but if trump has shown one thing it is that you should take what he says literally, and if you pay attention to what he and bannon have said you should be worried, no matter your political leaning or origin.

And that to me means we can't afford to get cynical on people's motives that are reacting to what is going on. So good on YC for doing this now.

technologia• 9 years ago

Also keep in mind that they have to use very little funding to fight innumerable injustices that have already happened and those that will potentially happen. Its incredibly tough as others have said on other fronts, but from a fiscal perspective its amazing they are able to do as much as they have.

arbitrage• 9 years ago

The ACLU does what it can, when it can, with the resources it has.

The answer you're looking for is that now the white-middle class is feeling the possibility of impending disaster, so of course now it's an emergency, and the floodgates of funding have opened.

rmc• 9 years ago

Where was the outpouring of funding when black people were being gunned down by cops from West Coast organizations? Where has YCombinator been as our own impoverished African-Americans are getting slaughtered in the streets of Chicago?

The tech community/industry thinks that it is a meritocracy, where race (and hence racism) doesn't exist.

wallace_f• 9 years ago

Where was the outpouring of funding when black people were being gunned down by cops from West Coast organizations? Where has YCombinator been as our own impoverished African-Americans are getting slaughtered in the streets of Chicago? Why weren't we funding the ACLU to help these people? I haven't seen Google talk about this, or AirBnB offer support to widows of veterans whose spouse commits suicide and has left them with nothing.

Thank you for your comment. Trump is anti-establishment (sort of: he's reshaping the establishment with his own insiders, I'm not saying he's any less corrupt) and he's anti-globalism. Don't lie to yourself: that's what this is about. The police state and surveillance state abuses are out of control, Obama dropped over 100,000 bombs on 7 countries, we're consistently throwing constitutional and human rights under the bus, Wall Street and the Fed are permitted to loan each other 16 trillion in secret loans and when it was revealed, the worst that happened was a finger wave from Bernie Sanders, 20 trillion in debt and a necessary, impending economic correction due to overspending (in the same exact way if you were spending way more than you earned for years and years, there's no getting away from that)... and I could go on and on. Please give me a break about Trump, he's a deeply flawed character but I'd like people to start being more honest and respectful to the realities we live with as our civil liberties and constitutional rights are consistently eroding as average, humble people are struggling to afford a middle class lifestyle, and it is magnificently disingenuous to pay lip service to the, and let us be honest, mainstream media which is owned by a small group of over-sized corporations, who play Trump out to be the Devil on Earth. But the real problems existed before and without Trump.

This will be entirely unpopular but I really don't care anymore about what being liberal has become. I care about the fact that we have a torture camp in Cuba, about what I mentioned above and more like it. I care about constitutional rights. Equal opportunity. Human rights. World peace. Environmentalism. Nobody in mainstream politics is actually for those things and it's really bothering me. If someone wrote this during the lead-up to Nazi Germany--you'd look back in retrospect and say they were right--I hope that is not the case for me. But I see just a few good people out there: Glenn Greenwald, Tulsi Gabbard, Edward Snowden, etc., who really hang out on the fringes of the mainstream consciousness of political thought in America, only once in a while coming into view for moments at a time.

ChickeNES• 9 years ago

In what way is Tulsi Gabbard a good person? She's a supporter of Bashar al-Assad.

morgante7• 9 years ago

You're committing the classic fallacy of castigating people for trying to fix a problem when they don't fix all problems.

Would you prefer that the wealthy tech companies didn't donate to the ACLU? That they refused to ever support any good causes?

This is a pernicious idea and should be put to death. Trying to step up and do something should not make you a target. Reserve your wrath for the many billionaires who don't do anything about any issue.

I read an article about this phenomenon a while ago, but I can't find the link. It's essentially the fallacy that trying to fix a problem makes you responsible for it—so if you can't completely fix it, you shouldn't try at all.

temp246810• 9 years ago

Exactly - what motive could OP's comment have other than self-aggrandizement.

Look at me everyone, in the face of something really good happening, I still complain about all our other shortcomings because I am morally superior.

This is a good thing that is happening, get off your high horse.

arjie• 9 years ago

This is absurd. Following this, no one should ever do anything since they could have just done some other thing sooner.

Now maybe I'm wrong and you're a Nobel Peace laureate, but it looks a lot to me like someone claiming to care but only criticizing in an unproductive manner.

"You should have engaged in this other thing earlier" is a bullshit criticism. And then the holier-than-thou nonsense at the end about just caring oh so much. Unbelievable.

OJFord• 9 years ago

Although I think the American Civil Liberties Union is

Thank you for writing it out.

The OP is impressive in it's length for managing not to tell me anything about the ACLU at all...

buddapalm• 9 years ago

Back then, we had a attorney general who had an interest in dealing with the problem, under an administration that could help deploy the government to deal with bad actors. That's all changed now, and the populous saw the gap, with the ACLU being well equipped to advocate for the same issues.

toomanybeersies• 9 years ago

To the credit of Starbucks, who you didn't mention but could be criticised for the same reasons, they did implement a plan to hire 10,000 veterans in 2013 (https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229828).

hannob• 9 years ago

I see an error message. But it's actually interesting enough: "Apache/2.2.24 (Unix) mod_hive/5.5 mod_ssl/2.2.24 OpenSSL/1.0.0-fips mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_fastcgi/2.4.6 mod_fcgid/2.3.6 Server at blog.ycombinator.com Port 443"

This is all widely outdated. OpenSSL 1.0.0 support has ended in 2014. Running mod_fcgid and mod_fastcgi in the same server process doesn't seem to make any sense (as they are basically competitioners for the same functionality).

edoceo• 9 years ago

Defaults on old boxen, that is still running, wow! Frontpage!

andres• 9 years ago

Sam - I'm very proud of you and your team.

llccbb• 9 years ago

People who want to use their tech and coding skills to enable and enact progressive change should consider getting involved in the ProgressiveCodersNetwork (Progcode)[0]. They are a dedicated organization that is all about facilitating and organizing efforts, not dictating projects.

[0] http://progcode.co

nayuki• 9 years ago

500 Internal Server Error

Maarius• 9 years ago

Cached: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Wr9fuA...

hvass• 9 years ago

Great job! I am Canadian and donated to ACLU this weekend. Fantastic decision, guys.

deadcast• 9 years ago

Happy to hear this! I just became an ACLU member yesterday and I'm grateful to have an organization like them around in our current frightening times. The amount of support they've been getting is pretty awesome! :)

andy_ppp3• 9 years ago

There are quite a few comments by presumably more right wing people marked as dead here. Excluding these people from debate this way makes hacker news less useful IMO. Why not make constructive criticism instead of downvoting, I realise it's easier...

maxerickson7• 9 years ago

It's flags that kill comments, not downvotes.

None of the flagged comments (at the moment) are constructive. There's one other dead comment that hit another filter, it hasn't been flagged.

freehunter10• 9 years ago

How do you flag comments? I can flag posts, but with over 11k karma I don't see an option to flag comments, only downvote.

Or can only the admins flag a comment?

forgetsusername3• 9 years ago

HackerNews loves to pat itself on the back about what a great community it is, but when it comes to politics (and other specific topics) the bullying and one-sidedness is as bad as anywhere on the internet.

But this is exactly why half of America is in utter shock about what's happening: their discussion circles involve one "side", and the other isn't acceptable.

freehunter10• 9 years ago

90% of what Trump and his supporters are saying truly is not acceptable, you're right. Banning people based on their religion, canceling visas that have already been granted, firing reasonable dissenters rather than working with them, discriminating against LGBTQ folks, destroying access to women's health care, those are all completely unacceptable ideas.

It doesn't matter that some people believe in them, some people believe that black people should drink from different water fountains than white people. We shouldn't entertain those ideas even for a second, we shouldn't legitimize them. Conservatives are completely accepted around here. What isn't accepted is authoritarianism, bigotry, sexism/racism, and hate.

Being a conservative does not mean you have to be a bigot, and being a bigot does not make you a conservative. There are plenty of conservatives who would agree with that. If you believe that you should have more rights than someone else purely because of the color of your skin or the god you worship, you've gone well beyond the label of "conservative", you are an authoritarian and no one should be forced to listen to you.

anigbrowl11• 9 years ago

When the other side is proposing to reduce the liberties of those it disagrees with, you're darn right it's not acceptable. It's not like conservatives are forced to get abortions, change gender, become homosexual, or have a different religion, but they complain mightily about other people who want to do such things for themselves, while conservatives present themselves as victims of...well, I'm not too clear on exactly how they've been victimized.

the bullying and one-sidedness is as bad as anywhere on the internet

Really? I read a lot of conservative forums and have done for years. I'd quickly be banned from HN if I were to start cutting and pasting the sort of personal attacks that are considered kek-worthy there.

tim3335• 9 years ago

bullying and one-sidedness is as bad as anywhere on the internet.

There are much worse places than HN.

rfrank3• 9 years ago

Welcome to HN, conservative opinions aren't terribly welcome.

pinaceae2• 9 years ago

more safe spaces for conservatives are needed.

andy_ppp3• 9 years ago

It's really great to see some interesting discussions of the points here rather than needless downvoting! I learned some things too and nobody got hurt.

I hasten to add that I think this order is designed as perfectly as possible to piss of liberals and entrench Trump supporters.

I mean the left is very good at pretending Obama wasn't an evil disaster for say Pakistanis or you know the rule of law. Just my opinion we need to get rid of executive orders and allow people to vote more directly. Politians should be lowered to civil servants rather than gravey train shoe ins. Wait and see if Trump does force through a two term limit for congress!!!

jonstewart2• 9 years ago

Thank you, YC! Hopefully your contribution outweighs the money Peter Thiel has made from his investments at YC so that there's a net gain for human rights and civil liberties.

matt_wulfeck2• 9 years ago

I used to be an ACLU supporter, but stopped after their main objectives switched to more of what I describe as matters of feelings, E.g., whether a man who identifies as a women can use a women's bathroom in Georgia, or whether the term man or women can ever be used at all. In my opinion most the ACLU LGBT agenda has been a useless war on words, yet it's taking on a greater and greater importance in the organization.

Meanwhile constitutionally-guaranteed personal liberties, such as protection against unreasonable search and seizure, seemed to be getting less and less important.

Instead I've switched to funding the EFF, which really does seem at the forefront of constitutional freedoms because it's operating in an area where they are seriously under attack. In the grand scheme of things the EFF seems to be doing much more important and historically relevant work.

tghw• 9 years ago

That's hardly their main focus. Go to https://www.aclu.org/ and click Issues. LGBT Rights are just one of 18 top level issues (many broken down into many more related issues).

I love the EFF, but they don't cover voting rights, disability rights, immigration rights, racial justice, etc.

matt_wulfeck2• 9 years ago

They have a lot of pokers in the civil liberty fire, and I really do wish them success in all of them. However as you (and probably many others here) are now supporters you'll start receiving the newsletter which outlines your local chapters focus, recent successes, and new battles. You can make a decision to continue supporting the organization or switch to something you believe personally is more important.

cabalamat• 9 years ago

racial justice

According to https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/affirmative-actio... they support discrimination against white people:

Affirmative action is one of the most effective tools for redressing the injustices caused by our nation’s historic discrimination against people of color and women, and for leveling what has long been an uneven playing field.

This is bad for two reasons

1. is is immoral in principle

2. it is bad politics; attitudes like this make it more likely that Trump will win a 2nd term

_23sd4• 9 years ago

Would it be your "feelings" telling you that the ACLU, by standing up for transgender rights, has pushed aside the fight for the personal liberties that "normal" people get to exercise? Because most of the cases my local ACLU is taking on are the classic standing up to police and ensuring that poor kids get an equal education.

https://www.aclusocal.org/en/cases

rpearl• 9 years ago

Eh, I'm gonna pick on it.

"A man who identifies as a woman" is a disingenuous statement--it is leading with some sort of made up notion of what their gender should be ("a man who..."), which is a false framing in the first place. Transgender women are women. They are not men with a qualifier.

Moving on: transgender bathroom rights matter. Access to public bathrooms is necessary for access to public spaces and is furthermore generally an indicator of free unencumbered movement in public. Therefore, state-sponsored humiliation tactics are indicating a stance that trans people are not welcome in a public space. This is problematic, and furthermore is certainly a matter of civil liberty. The ACLU should take those cases and it's important to stand up against steps to marginalize and "other" groups of people. As public space is necessary to exercise certain rights in the constitution, particularly the first amendment, this matters at a very deep level.

To give a clear and specific example: a friend of mine is no longer safe visiting his family in North Carolina, as he is trans. He must either choose to violate the law in public to fit in (he passes as a man), or by following the law out himself or put himself at risk. He no longer has the liberty to visit his family like you or I do, without additional--potentially severe--legal or physical risk.

gthtjtkt4• 9 years ago

So when we were dropping bombs on them it wasn't worth making an official statement, but now that they get held up at the border for a few hours it's suddenly worth talking about?

I can't think of a case where the term "Virtue Signaling" is more apt.

beaconstudios17• 9 years ago

well, it's been reported on quite heavily that we're constantly being bombarded with fake news. Some just don't recognise that it's an issue across the political spectrum.

l8again2• 9 years ago

Combined with the blanket ban that includes even GC holders, and a clause that due preference is given to one religion over another, along with the way its being implemented (grandmothers detained for 13 - 24 hours on valid visas) with the dark context of the candidate's campaign promise and his administration admission that they "made it legal", yes it is a Muslim ban.

boboyo2• 9 years ago

No, it's not but good job reciting the talking points. There are 46 other Muslim majority countries not affected. GC holders are not affected as has been clearly stated by WH.

jlgaddis• 9 years ago

Did a bunch of people just learn the term "virtue signaling" in the last few days? I don't recall seeing it spoken on here in ages but it seems I've read it 20 times in just the last few days. It reminds me of a child who learns a new, big word and then porceeds to use it in conversation (to "show off") as often as possible.

whorleater2• 9 years ago

It's a newer form of calling people "SJW's" or "White Knights", thereby reducing their opposition to caricatures and removing any realistic and reasonable discussion.

_23sd4• 9 years ago

Right-wing trolls all hang out in the same subreddits and /pol/ threads, so they have a common set of talking points which inevitably take on a "flavor of the week".

_23sd4• 9 years ago

(The parent comment has been edited: at the time of this comment it claimed that there was no Muslim ban, citing the absence of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. from the list.)

Who's doing the "virtue signaling"? I thought that would be Trump's lackeys who keep insisting to their xenophobic fans that this is what they got when Trump asked for a Muslim ban that might pass legal muster.[0] Of course, that being what they're going for doesn't make it legal, or even likely legal: certainly Bush, and even Obama sometimes struggled to do "national security" in a manner consistent with the constitution.[1]

[0] http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316726-giuliani-t...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedges_v._Obama

yeukhon• 9 years ago

Apache/2.2.24 (Unix) mod_hive/5.5 mod_ssl/2.2.24 OpenSSL/1.0.0-fips mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_fastcgi/2.4.6 mod_fcgid/2.3.6 Server at blog.ycombinator.com Port 443

Should probably hide this...

mjmsmith2• 9 years ago

This is very welcome news, even if it won't go over well with the large number of authoritarians here.

forgetsusername3• 9 years ago

the large number of authoritarians here.

Everybody who has a different viewpoint than me is a <insert label>!

MagnumOpus• 9 years ago

How would you label people who are for reducing civil liberties then?

mjmsmith2• 9 years ago

Large number isn't everybody. There are many libertarians here, and I have a different viewpoint from them too. I've just been surprised how many people turned out to be authoritarians once one got into power.

cdelsolar3• 9 years ago

I mean, if they are supporting Trump, they are literally authoritarians.

koolba5• 9 years ago

So when did YC decide to do this? Was it in the works for a while or purely knee jerk response to the past week?

6stringmerc• 9 years ago

As a wise man was once rumored to say, "In the Start Up World, be nimble and never miss a bandwagon that fits in your vertical."

griffinmichl• 9 years ago

Sam Altman and Paul Graham have clearly been pissed off for quite a while if you follow them on Twitter.

angry-hacker• 9 years ago

When ever it's beneficial to them and makes them more money. If you believe otherwise, you're a fool. Too bad they didn't step up when Obama started to wiretap the whole world what is much bigger issue. They and their companies should have cut all the ties with the fascist government, but most likely knowingly let their companies to participate.

I don't support Trump, but Altman and PG lack balls, are cowards and hypocrites.

adgasf• 9 years ago

The ACLU was founded in 1920. It seems wierd to include it in a YC batch.

koolba5• 9 years ago

How much money do non-profits get?

tim3335• 9 years ago

I think $120k the same as for profits. Dunno if the ACLU will be more.

samuelbrin• 9 years ago

Thank you YC. Thank you all so much. On this particular issue, I do not think it is worth engaging with people about its merit or timing. This is a critical moment in history and you are doing something. The velocity of decision-making in the oval office means we literally don't have time to sit down with the cynics right now.

pcl2• 9 years ago

Technical issue with the Wufoo form [0]: on iOS Chrome, the input fields somehow end up triggering autofill with first name / last name. The second field is for email address, not last name, however.

Looking at the source, the best I can come up with is that the email field's 'id' attribute is set to 'title2', and maybe that's used elsewhere on the internet in a context where I've entered a last name?

Also, when I hit 'back' and corrected the name, the submit button became a (clickable) no-op. Reloading the form and re-submitting worked fine.

[0] https://ycombinatorevents.wufoo.com/forms/q42uszl19i1mu6/

aashaykumar92• 9 years ago

"This is awesome, good luck!" or something similarly supportive should be the bulk of comments in here. Cynicism for something like this, especially given the time we're in, is not helpful.

irrational• 9 years ago

I appreciate the ACLU. They make it easy for me to vote. Every election I go through the voting booklet to see how the ACLU recommends I vote on candidates and issues, then I vote the opposite.

codezero• 9 years ago

Why? How can you be sure your beliefs/convictions anti-correlate with the ACLU every election? How do you calibrate it?

pcl2• 9 years ago

This is very timely. In particular, I was happy to see the appeal for help from engineers. I've been brainstorming for the last couple of days about what more I can do to defend the America I want to live in, now that it seems clear that such defense will be necessary. But as a programmer, it's not obvious to me what is the best way for me to do so in the immediate term.

One of the things that's appealing to me about the ACLU in particular is the bipartisan nature of their mission. I'm sure that there are other such organizations out there looking for engineers to help out. Does anyone have such a list?

EDIT: here are some, from brandonb's response elsewhere in this comment thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13532281

nickparker3• 9 years ago

It isn't bipartisan, but ProgCode was mentioned elsewhere in the thread. They build open-source tools for progressive political organizations.

If you aren't a progressive, you might still consider getting involved and employing those same tools to help your preferred party/organizations. The ideal of higher political involvement through digital tools is very bipartisan in my opinion - notwithstanding disenfranchisement efforts by the right, which I like to view separately from conservatism itself.

http://www.progcode.co/#about

johngalt• 9 years ago

I applaud anyone supporting the ACLU, but perhaps it would send a less partisan message if the YC also supported the NRA.

Of course, YC may intend to send a partisan message. In that case I guess it's better to only defend the rights that <ingroup> are interested in defending.

zitterbewegung• 9 years ago

The article is short of details and I am curious what ycombinator will contribute to the ACLU other than capital (networking? , constructive criticism ) ? It doesn't fit the previous nonprofits since it is well established.

jrowley• 9 years ago

YC will teach them how to spend all that money they just raised!

Jokes aside I think YC should be able to help them utilize technology to connect people and advance their message.

jaypaulynice3• 9 years ago

Come on YC, glad you're funding the ACLU and it's much needed, but where is the response to the homelessness in San Francisco for example? We care more about refugees than people who already live here?! Too many companies are taking advantage of a bad situation for PR and marketing!

boboyo2• 9 years ago

sad this is flagged to the bottom yet it's a valid concern

anigbrowl11• 9 years ago

I have posted stories about homelessness and the unsustainability of economic inequality here for years and have had many productive discussions with the HN community in general and YC members in particular on these topics. Just because people are activated over refugees does not mean they're indifferent to domestic political issues.

chillacy3• 9 years ago

Probably because you could make a comment like this about any social issue, and the substance basically amounts to "my cause is more important than your cause". I've seen it attached to space exploration (why bother with space when our environment is in danger?) and victims of natural disasters (but what about <local natural disaster>).

RainManDetroit• 9 years ago

I wish the union had a refund policy, though I would be litigated and defamed for eternity

oneshoe• 9 years ago

Simply, Thank You!

johndevor• 9 years ago

Why is Ycombinator involved in politics now? This didn't used to be the case.

int_19h16• 9 years ago

I think it's more of a case of politics affecting the industry significantly.

You can't really fully isolate business from politics, because politics, by definition, affects business. Businesses can tolerate that to some degree, but when the disruption becomes too severe, straightforward pragmatic business decisions start being inherently political.

blablabla1232• 9 years ago

Yeah but there's kind of the idea to keep both as separate as possible. When Hitler came to power he was very well connected with the big industrialists at that time. The years before Germany was a really chaotic and highly polarized nation. Reading the US news daily (CNN and Fox) I also see large polarization. I wonder if this move is bridging the gap between left and right or widening it.

dirkdk• 9 years ago

I feel the pain of the underprivileged americans, in particular our African-American brothers and sisters. However, there is a difference however between the top leadership of our country making explicit decisions to pass legislation to exclude groups of people that is at odds with the constitution and established legislation, and local government and law enforcement running cities in an unfair way.

ACLU is valuable in both situations, but in particular to fight the current executive branch that requires massive manpower, knowledge and dedication.

joshfraser• 9 years ago

I've been a long time supporter of the ACLU. While they're being politicized right now as being anti-Trump, the thing I admire most about them is their consistency in fighting for the rights of everyone. They stick to their principles of free speech and human equality no matter how unpopular the issue or unsavory their client.

A good example is back in the 1930s when the ACLU simultaneously defended the rights of blacks on behalf of the NAACP at the same time as they were fighting for the rights of the Klu Klux Klan to hold rallies calling for the abolition of those rights.

The strength of your convictions are only tested at the extremes. Do you still believe in free speech when it's coming from neo-Nazis? The ACLU do and I deeply respect them for that.

Pigo• 9 years ago

I would really like to see if a moral position like that could still stand tall. I'd be surprised if they could defend Milo Yiannopoulos's Twitter account without massive protests and everyone losing their job.

CPLX• 9 years ago

There are literally zero constitutional issues raised by the nature of his relationship with Twitter.

19guid8• 9 years ago

Unfortunately, the ACLU is not always consistent on the issue of free speech. For example, they have frequently argued in favour of compelling speech from Christian bakers, florists and photographers who, for reasons of conscience, are unwilling to provide their creative services for same-sex weddings. [1] [2] [3]

[1] http://aclu-co.org/court-rules-bakery-illegally-discriminate...

[2] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2016/0712/A-florist-cau...

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/us/weighing-free-speech-in...

danielsju612• 9 years ago

Refusal of service based race, sex, marital status or sexual orientation is not protected speech. It's discrimination. They gave up rights when they went into business.

Miner49er6• 9 years ago

The line between free speech and discrimination was drawn long ago. Would you also have people deny service to Black Americans like we did before the Civil Rights movement?

azrazalea• 9 years ago

I've always had an internal issue here.

On one hand, I believe heavily in free speech to the point where as a principle (but not a constitutional thing) I find a lot of twitter and facebook's recent behavior awful.

On a personal level, I think religion is stupid and people who refuse to give service to anyone over it equally stupid(especially since if they were actually following Jesus's word they wouldn't be doing it. There's a lot about not judging and jesus hanging out with sinners in the new testament). I try not to let this affect my policy opinions since I try to be logical not emotional about them but I'm not sure how well I succeed. Religious beliefs do seem to be about the only reason people are trying to push for these sorts of things too.

Another point on a personal level is I would not want to work with someone on something like my wedding with someone who secretly hated who I am. Especially if they were being coerced by the government to do it.

So overall I'm altogether confused about the whole issue.

One thing I am sure of is that I am absolutely against any kind of religious exemption to any law whatsoever. Make the law one way or another.

sidlls14• 9 years ago

Please consider the correct context: these are entities selling services as a business, not individuals expressing a personal opinion. They want the various protections and benefits law provides to businesses (yes, even Single Proprietor/Partnerships) in some circumstances but to be treated like they're just ordinary citizens in others.

rayiner2• 9 years ago

The issue isn't just limited to LGBT folks. The Civil Rights Act makes it illegal for businesses to refuse service to customers on the basis of race, religion, etc. For any business that offers a creative service, that's arguably a First Amendment violation. Usually, that is justified on the basis that commercial speech as lower First Amendment protections than other kinds of speech.

alanh3• 9 years ago

You used the passive voice, “the ACLU are being politicized right now as being anti-Trump.”

The ACLU, in their official communications and advertisements, have been actively and explicitly anti-Trump. Witness their current 'pinned tweet' for example: https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/825805289572151298

I don’t really mind that, but let’s not ignore that the ACLU intentionally earned their reputation as an opponent of this administration (and to some extent, of every previous admin, as well)!

bb6113• 9 years ago

There is a chasm between anti-illegal behavior by the president and anti-president. By this definition of "actively and explicitly anti-Trump" the ACLU was probably the 2nd most anti-Obama group after the birthers.

The ACLU has a clear agenda that is not highly aligned with either political party, so "being politicized" is accurate.

DashRattlesnake4• 9 years ago

A long time ago, during the GWB administration, I donated to the ACLU and got placed on the postal mailing lists of innumerable unrelated Democratic-leaning activist organizations. I was disappointed by that, since the partisan association cheapens their work and opens them up to attack.

morgante7• 9 years ago

Trump has positioned himself as actively and explicitly anti-civil liberties. He does not feel he is bound to ethical rules or rule of law.

bbctol3• 9 years ago

I would say the ACLU is by definition anti-government, though. Not in the sense that they want it destroyed, just in the sense that they'll always be the opposition to the executive branch. So they're "anti-Trump," but not in a way that's easily politicized; if any Democratic executives tried to punish people for being pro-Trump, the ACLU would be against them too.

snowwrestler3• 9 years ago

They are telling people to fight back against Trump's executive orders that threaten civil liberties.

They are not anti-Trump, in that if Trump rescinded his problematic EOs, the ACLU would stop fighting him. The issue is not the man, it's the policy.

baconner9• 9 years ago

I think it would be more accurate to say right now that Trump is anti ACLU and everything it stands for. They're the static object in this equation imo.

They're not anti-Trump the person. They're against anyone who intends to ignore/damage civil liberties and Trump the candidate was pretty explicit about his thoughts there and is following through.

rayiner2• 9 years ago

For context, I've got 8 years of ACLU emails with quotes like:

Despite initial assurances that he would veto this outrageous bill, President Obama will now be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law.

amckenna• 9 years ago

I searched around to see if I could find any writeup about the ACLU defending the NAACP and KKK at the same time. I found a similar example to the one you described from the mid 90's - http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/10/news/a-klansman-s-black-la...

cperciva• 9 years ago

An even more impressive demonstration of their principles: In the 1970s the ACLU supported the National Socialist Party of America in their fight to be allowed to display swastikas while marching through the predominantly-Jewish village of Skokie.

Incidentally, the lawyers representing the National Socialist Party and the ACLU were both Jewish.

SomewhatLikely• 9 years ago

Not sure what happened, but it looks like the attorney was recently disbarred for "professional misconduct". http://www.txcourts.gov/media/825977/149249.pdf

EternalData• 9 years ago

Skokie, IL. The epitome of a principled defense of civil rights.

hackuser2• 9 years ago

While they're being politicized right now ...

That's long been true, though I'm sure sometimes more than others. I agree with what you say, but AFAIK they always have been associated with the left.

matthewbauer• 9 years ago

True, they are more left-wing than right-wing. At the same time, they support Citizens United which is usually considered conservative. So it's not so clear cut.

krenoten• 9 years ago

to the extent that the left is associated with the maintenance of our rights

shawn-butler2• 9 years ago

The ACLU used to be an entirely admirable organization. It has devolved into mostly political advocacy and attention-seeking, but still does some good work. Not black/white, every institution has its own history. But YC is entirely diluting their brand wading into this mess.

The A.C.L.U. has has about 250,000+ members, a $15-20 million annual budget (hardly a startup mentality), an extensive network of state affiliates and local chapters, backed up by a national office with headquarters in New York, a legislative office in Washington and regional offices in Atlanta and Denver.

There are fifty-one affiliates - every state except North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Idaho, plus 3 in California, and one in D.C. (not sure about state offices anymore, I think that is correct), - have their own staffs and their own boards, plus at least one representative on the national board, which sets policy for the whole organization.

The state affiliates do make independent decisions about which cases to take and which local legislation to lobby for or against. They frequently take cases in areas where the national organization has not yet adopted a policy. But they also get smacked down when they run afoul of national board.

It is the national board sets a "policy" agenda and then seeks out cases to pursue that agenda. That board meets for a weekend four times a year to iron out the policy.

That natl/local split accounts for some of the diversity, but in truth it is mostly partisan organization based on board membership.

pcvarmint3• 9 years ago

In Worst Instincts [1] [2], Wendy Kaminer documents this.

I lately have found the Rutherford Institute [3] to be a much better protector of individual rights than the ACLU. [4]

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Worst-Instincts-Cowardice-Conformity-...

[2] http://beta.wendykaminer.com/ACLU.aspx

[3] http://rutherford.org/

[4] http://www.npr.org/2013/06/02/188125996/john-whitehead-on-pr...

soheil2• 9 years ago

How do startups already part of YC feel about this? What are the ramifications of having your name tied with and being part of an organization that backed something that has as much to do, if not more, with politics than technology?

justinlaster2• 9 years ago

Politics is intertwined with everything. Not sure why you're trying to draw a line here.

Start ups are extremely "people" based entities. If you think the ACLU doesn't fit in with the YCombinator landscape -- given recent events -- then I'm not sure what I can really say to paint a more vivid picture to make you understand.

soheil2• 9 years ago

My point is not that startups are not "people" based entities, but simply that this is a clear aversion from the norm on the part of YC and that ACLU is as much a political organization, if not more, than a technological one.

anigbrowl11• 9 years ago

Technology has political ramifications, like what to do with a population that has been economically displaced by robots, physical or virtual; or how much nformation government and powerful corporations should be able to harvest about individuals; or whether you have the right to use encryption or not, or....

philip1209• 9 years ago

Politics aside, the ACLU is experiencing hyper growth. They received the equivalent of six years of donations in 48 hours. I'm interested in seeing how YC helps them.

pkd• 9 years ago

I am sure this is a good thing, but I can't help but feel that YC is overcompensating for the fact that one of their partners played a pivotal role in Trump's victory and they did nothing to oppose it.

But then again, maybe I am just cynical.

aestetix2• 9 years ago

This would be a lot easier for me to digest if YC could ask their companies going forward to pledge to treat all user data as PII.

tlb• 9 years ago

I'm interested in this idea, but I'm not sure exactly what to suggest that companies do. Can you recommend some guidelines on how to treat user data that will reduce the harm caused by the way startups currently treat user data?

aestetix2• 9 years ago

Two immediate suggestions:

1. Use a Ulysses pact[1] explaining how data is and will be used. Assure users that the company won't turn into a data broker[2].

2. Either lobby local/state/federal government to create legal data protections, or publicly support existing efforts. Europe is not perfect, but the ECHR and German data protection laws are a fantastic model to follow.

There are a lot of more technical suggestions involving data sanitizing and security, but for a startup that just needs to get up to speed quickly, those are two suggestions that would go a long way. Leading by example might bring the entire industry forward in a positive way.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_pact

[2]https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601506/23andme-sells-data...

lpolovets• 9 years ago

It upsets me to read negative comments about initiatives like this. My assumption is that most people agree that it'd be good for the ACLU to have more funding and to operate in a more efficient, higher leverage manner. If YC can help with that, great! They could be backing other areas instead, or they could be backing nothing. I, for one, am glad they're backing something good.

I don't understand why people often bring up other areas where private money and resources could have gone. When someone says "I support X" (e.g. X = ACLU), they are not saying "I don't support anything that's not X." They are just saying they care about X. If you would prefer to donate your time and resources to another cause, that's great! I'm sure you'd be disappointed if you dedicated yourself to curing diabetes and someone complained because they thought cancer research should be higher priority, or if you offered to hire 10k refugees around the world and people suggested a boycott because they preferred that you hire Americans instead.

Let's not discourage people from trying to make the world better.

mememachine• 9 years ago

The discouragement is not about making the world better

rz2k3• 9 years ago

Maybe a little glib, but this came up on Reddit from Twitter:

The left protest about Trump, but they're strangely silent about King Raedwald's invasion of Northumbria in AD 616[1]

It's a bizarre way to argue in favor of being politically detached.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/5r6zw0/the_left...

tinalumfoil• 9 years ago

I never supported Trump, but I can't find it in myself to join the opposition specifically because I don't understand them. When someone says "Why are you protesting Trump doing X, but not Obama doing X?" it's not a valid argument, and it's not a convincing argument, but that's not the point.

If your answer is "well, when Obama did X he mitigated the negative effects by also doing Y, and did X in political climate where it made more sense and yadda yadda" then I have something tangible to understand your motives. I can feel like I'm donating to an organization or protesting alongside people I understand the motives of. But by treating it as an insider secret only the smarter half of Americans will figure out, regardless of the issue or question, I'm left in the dark alongside the unenlightened Republicans.

Worse, Republicans, who will soon control 3 branches of government, get to say people are just predisposed to hating Trump and have no incentive to listen to protesters. My personal take has been the left has been thrown into chaos by Trump's unexpected victory and don't have a unified voice or reasoning. People won't speak because their afraid their reasoning might step on the toes of someone else's, so everyone just pretends its obvious and gathers immense support without saying anything.

bjourne3• 9 years ago

I hope it is because we are all hackers and programmers. We find flaws in everything because that is (literally) our jobs.

Illniyar• 9 years ago

What will they present at Demo Day?

Not that I'm against helping the ACLU (or any non-profit for that matter), but they don't seem like a good fit, as an organization, to an accelerator of tech startups - it's not entrepreneurial, not technology oriented, far older then YC and doesn't seek (and can't really accept) VC funding.

ansible• 9 years ago

Yeah, I was wondering about that too. They're not a startup... they've been around way longer that YC.

I'm fine with YC supporting the ACLU in some way (financially or whatever), but... are they going to release an app or service? What's the angle here?

asveikau3• 9 years ago

Pre-inauguration, discussion of Trump's immigration policies and their logical conclusion would have been shut down under the "no politics" rule.

Seems it only takes ~10 days of this stuff being real for folks here to admit that politics affects everybody and is a valid topic of discussion.

tim3335• 9 years ago

Guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."

I think this counts as an interesting new phenomenon.

asveikau3• 9 years ago

Is it new if they've been promising to do this for ~1 year? This is exactly my point, that people on here flame you into the ground if you talk about "politics", but it could be that some of us 1 year ago would have been legitimately trying to talk about what was to come.

unethical_ban• 9 years ago

It's allowed here now because banning foreign nationals from traveling to the US has an impact on industries that are associated with foreign workers. Say, IT, and engineering.

josephagoss• 9 years ago

I think the point the OP was making (correct me if I am wrong) is that the banning of political discussion may have been a bad idea as it was obvious that this was going to happen.

The leading Republican candidate has been constantly talking about these types of bans yet discussion on HN was not allowed during a time where perhaps discussion could have prevented Trump gaining power.

Now we are in "cure" mode. It would have been better to prevent this from taking place.

grzm14• 9 years ago

It's not because this particular issue is associated with tech. I've collected some of the comments 'dang has made recently regarding politics and HN here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13538787

grzm14• 9 years ago

There's been a lot of misunderstanding with respect to the appropriateness of politics on HN. 'dang has made a number of comments related to it recently. I've aggregated some of them. The quotes are just identifiable snippets from the posts themselves. If you're interested in this topic, I encourage you to read them in their entirety.

---

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969

There's no satisfying anybody about this: not the readers who want more politics, not the readers who want less, and certainly not the partisans on an issue.

---

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13522433

There's a lot more politics on HN right now than there usually is, which is appropriate since it reflects what's going on right now.

---

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13516969

When there's a deluge of political stories, as in the last couple days, users heavily flag most of them. But there have still been plenty of major threads spending plenty of time on the front page. That's the status quo for HN: most politics are off topic, but not all. It's a delicate balance and an important one. Letting politics overrun this site would kill it.

krylon• 9 years ago

Heads-up: This going to be a long-ish, semi-OT rant:

To be honest, I feel kind of dumb these days. How I hate admitting that.

I read all the outrageous things Trump said during the Primaries and his election campaign, and I did not really take them seriously, or him. Otto von Bismarck, a German politician once said (or at least I've seen the quote attributed to him, but it seems like something he would say): "People never lie as much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt." I was hoping that if he got elected, Trump would turn it down a notch. I mean, damn, for once a politician does as she/he promised to, and it's gotta be this guy.

What makes me feel dumb is that I could have seen it coming. There's enough people that said so. Smart people, smarter than me, certainly. I hate pulling a Godwin, but I fear lots of people in Germany must have felt like this after you-know-who rose to power. It's scary.

And I am a German, living in Germany. Let me point out, as an example, that guy in Hungary, whose name I keep forgetting. Hungary is much closer than any US territory (unless you count the military bases in Germany), and quite frankly, I don't really give a damn who is president of Hungary. Or prime minister or whatever.

With the USA, it is different. They are the most powerful country on earth, for better or worse. The risk of a military confrontation with Russia is going to be a lot lower than with Hillary, I think. But that seems to be about the only glimmer of hope[1]. Besides that, Trump turns out to be even more disgusting than I would have expected.

Y Combinator got quite a bit of flak when Peter Thiel donated more money to Trump's campaign than some people make in a lifetime, and with good reason, IMHO. So at least it's good to read about this. I hope the ACLU makes the best of this and makes life as uncomfortable for Trump and his circle of "advisors" as they are able to within the boundaries laid down in the US constitution.

The world has seen much worse people than Trump come and go, and in the long run it's all water under the bridge. But in the short run, people have suffered and died in quantities that boggle the mind. Let's hope the world gets lucky this time.

[1] 'bout the only other positive aspect I can make out right now is that reading the news is not going to get boring anytime soon.

santoshalper2• 9 years ago

The idea that there was a significant risk of military confrontation with Russia under Hillary was pure propaganda. Russia is absolutely in no position to engage the United States militarily, and are resorting to manipulating US politics because they know this.

wcummings• 9 years ago

I read all the outrageous things Trump said during the Primaries and his election campaign, and I did not really take them seriously, or him. Otto von Bismarck, a German politician once said (or at least I've seen the quote attributed to him, but it seems like something he would say): "People never lie as much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt." I was hoping that if he got elected, Trump would turn it down a notch.

I know folks in America who thought the same way, even on the left. I hope they feel pretty fucking stupid right now.

acqq• 9 years ago

Anybody who wants to have a balanced view of ACLU should try to investigate for himself about the connections between the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization with a published goal to dismantle democracy once it democratically gains enough power, and ACLU.

hvo• 9 years ago

A standing ovation for Ycombinator.May the grace and bless of God be with you all.Keep up the good work.

rhizome2• 9 years ago

I have to wonder what YC's exit strategy is here, exits not always benefiting the funded company.

tim3335• 9 years ago

I don't think there's an exit strategy or taking of equity. They've funded non profits like that for a couple of years now. "money we’re putting into the nonprofits will be a charitable donation" https://www.ycombinator.com/nonprofits/

kafkaesq6• 9 years ago

It's not that kind of an "investment". It's more less obviously a charitable donation.

rhizome2• 9 years ago

Why leave it to interpretation?

brlewis• 9 years ago

I hope they build their startup into a large independent entity and don't just accept the first acquisition offer they get from Google or Facebook.

Hydraulix989• 9 years ago

I'll have more to say after work, but the timeline itself of tech companies' actions is telling.

First/day one (and same day as Muslim ban): The companies and people that actually cared stood up (Google)

Day Two+: Transition Period (when Lyft rushed in to capitalize on Uber's bad PR)

mid-this week (after Muslim ban): The companies that are pressured into doing so or are solely after PR karma stand up (Bezos, YC)

giardini6• 9 years ago

Why, oh why, has this been posted here? Is there possibly a single institution that serves as more of a lightning rod for anger in the USA, in any political direction, than the ACLU? Would a similar article be posted about the NRA, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, or Southern Poverty Law Center (all which, along with ACLU, do excellent work for their contributors/supporters)?

From the ycombinator Hacker News Guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." What part of "politics" is this not?

This topic now is yet another gathering point for all unhappy with the election results. Perhaps this forum will allow those discontents to vent to sufficient degree to restore themselves to adulthood and return to their work, home and friends with a more balanced attitude required of a citizen in a republic. But I fear it will simply be another place for them to reinforce their anger and distrust. It's probably a good thing that liberals, in general, avoid firearms, otherwise there might be fighting in the streets already.

kafkaesq6• 9 years ago

Why has this been posted here?

Because it relates to the public doings of YC, which are always on-topic (overriding the "no politics per se" rule).

giardini6• 9 years ago

Indeed? The logic of your well-thought out and ponderous argument is utterly overwhelming.

Might have as well said "Because we can!"

RileyKyeden2• 9 years ago

As I read this, I imagined you as one of those flailing tube people car dealerships put out.

giardini6• 9 years ago

Thank you! This confirms that I have reached the audience I intended!8-))

What else is there to do? YC owns the football. I have no choice but to acquiesce to their (re)interpretation of their own rules.

But they own neither the stadium, nor the electorate, nor the country. And there's a bigger game afoot than this one.

bb6113• 9 years ago

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

The president of the United States just signed an order legally barring hundreds of millions of people from entering the US on the basis of their country of origin, which is in fact unprecedented.

This topic now is yet another gathering point for all unhappy with the election results.

Accurate.

It's probably a good thing that liberals, in general, avoid firearms, otherwise there might be fighting in the streets already.

Classy

giardini6• 9 years ago

bb611 says> "The president ...signed an order legally barring hundreds of millions of people from entering the US ..."

But the reality is

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/zorn/ct-anti-trum...

"The fact of the matter is 325,000 people from foreign countries came into the United States" on Saturday, Priebus told NBC's "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd. "And 109 people were detained for further questioning."

KVFinn• 9 years ago

The ACLU defended a Republican city councilor in my parent's small home town for having his signs taken down by the Democratic mayor. You wouldn't think they'd even notice such a tiny thing, but they were there, and they won.

makomk4• 9 years ago

I have a feeling that in the current political climate, a lot of the ACLU's traditional activities will come under hostile scrutiny from their newfound supporters soon.

joering2• 9 years ago

Also, please consider donating to the ACLU.

Am I the only one seeing irony that a billionaires VC firm is asking for donations to organization they are funding?

mmckelvy4• 9 years ago

I see SV and its ilk are doubling down on the actions and ideas that lost them the election. Perhaps something beyond a knee-jerk reaction is in order.

Great article along these lines: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/nine-questions-protesti...

Particularly salient quote:

"If you decide that border restrictions are fascist then you are declaring the views of most people to be fascist, because most people believe in border security."

Food for thought.

morgante7• 9 years ago

Nobody is saying that "border restrictions" are fascist.

It's jeopardizing rule of law which reeks of fascism. This weekend, the rule of law was jeopardized though the:

- surprise invalidation and revocation of visas; people who had followed every law were still being detained and deported

- detention of permanent residents

- refusal to follow court orders

We could instigate far more stringent border restrictions (maybe no new visas to anywhere) and I wouldn't call it fascist. It's the implementation (without warning or judicial oversight) which is fascist. We're supposed to have 3 branches of government, not a dictator.

mmckelvy4• 9 years ago

The majority of the reactions I have seen focus almost exclusively on the restrictions themselves rather than the way they were implemented.

Among SV, the media, Hollywood, and elites in general, any call for immigration / entry restrictions almost immediately results in the usual "you are a bigot", "you are a fascist" "we are a nation of immigrants" etc. visceral reactions NOT the kind of more nuanced response you provided above. That's the point of the article to which I referred. Maybe it's time to stop calling people names and organizing against them for having completely legitimate concerns and instead debate the actual issues at hand in a reasonable manner.

g_sch• 9 years ago

It's easy to poll high support numbers for things like "border security" if you avoid the details of what that means. For decades, border security did not mean explicitly banning the entry of all people coming from certain countries based on a campaign promise of religious-based discrimination.

I'm guessing that if you polled the approval of "ban all Muslims, including legal permanent residents", you may end up with lower numbers.

EDIT: this doesn't even mention that, at a certain point, it's necessary to draw the line at fundamental rights that cannot be voted away. Thankfully we have organizations such as the ACLU who fight to protect that line.

mmckelvy4• 9 years ago

No one has called for a ban of all Muslims, citizens or otherwise and no fundamental rights of U.S. citizens have been threatened as far as I know.

We are talking about which non-citizens we allow into our country.

rafikicoln• 9 years ago

Especially now, it is very important to voice our concerns to our representatives. I've found https://www.mailyourrep.io/ to be really good at letting me do just that.

chx• 9 years ago

I have debated myself but did not donate the ACLU this weekend. (I did donate to the Victoria Islamic Center Rebuilding though.) I hate to be right. Working with an organization where Peter Thiel is a partner is a betrayal of everything the ACLU stands for.

cbhl• 9 years ago

sama, I hope you will consider temporarily withdrawing YC's involvement (as an entity) with the ACLU.

I know that you mean well, and that you want to help. Your work on voteplz, and your blog posts during the election (and since) all demonstrate that.

However, this announcement -- especially now, with the ACLU raising $24 million over the weekend -- feels like "whitewashing" to me. The announcement lacks a number for the amount funded, so it must not have been big enough to be material (probably $XX,000).

I am not comfortable with Peter Thiel's involvement with the Trump campaign. And, by extension, I am not comfortable with sama's and YC's position to continue working with Thiel. I don't feel safe, given the current political environment. I feel like this announcement sounds like a way to "make up" for not cutting ties with Thiel. Basically, it looks like a PR move in YC's interest instead of the ACLU's interest -- something like the Ronald McDonald charity, or Google donating Chromebooks to schools, or an oil company donating to a charity that replants the rainforest. I worry that many others (especially immigrants, women, and people of color) may feel the same way.

I don't expect sama or YC to cut ties with Thiel -- sama has already given reasons why he doesn't wish to: https://twitter.com/sama/status/787834428064083968

But I believe that, so long as Thiel continues to be involved with YC, that YC being associated with the ACLU will harm the ACLU, its brand, and its ability to fundraise. And -- even with the brightest minds in SV -- I'm not confident in YC's ability to help the ACLU enough to offset that harm.

I really wish that I didn't feel this way about the announcement. We really need to be working together to fight to protect our democracy.

(Edit: Rewrote they -> I in Paragraph 4.)

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