<story><title>Drop Dropbox</title><url>http://www.drop-dropbox.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>janj</author><text>Starting an unnecessary war is a big deal. Denying due process and torturing detainees is a big deal. The Patriot Act was one of the most un-American acts of Congress. Rice had a significant role in destroying the values I once thought were vitally important in claiming American exceptionalism. We can never get that back. We are now a country that starts unnecessary wars, tortures detainees and denies due process and spends vast resources on surveilling every citizen and she had a role in that. We will never be the country we once were before Rice and the Bush administration. I am proud to have always been vocally against the war, torture and the Patriot Act. I will continue to oppose the people who led these efforts and oppose anything they are involved with, staying true to my own personal values requires this.</text></item><item><author>grellas</author><text>Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world.&lt;p&gt;In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they view the world generally. Startup culture thirty years ago had a decidedly American flavor. Today, it does not because the world is big and diverse and because entrepreneurs today who do startups come from all sorts of cultures and backgrounds. Surely, those who come from such divergent backgrounds hold differing political and religious views. Some are conservative, others liberal, still others apolitical. Some are theists, others atheists. The variations are many but one thing is certain: &lt;i&gt;not all people think alike on political, religious, or social topics&lt;/i&gt;. These are issues that inherently will divide.&lt;p&gt;What happens, then, when people attempt to set political, social, or religious tests as criteria for who can hold important positions in a business organization? Well, it gets about as ugly as it can get, just as such tests proved ugly when used historically by, say, Christians to exclude Jews from holding important positions in society or to punish atheists for not holding to some prescribed creed.&lt;p&gt;One might say, &amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;this&lt;/i&gt; is different&amp;quot; because we are not holding to an arbitrary creed but rather to fundamental principles that ought to govern all humanity. Well, that is precisely how those who sought to impose thought control in other eras rationalized their conduct. &amp;quot;Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party&amp;quot; is a question that destroyed many careers as the blacklists proliferated back in the 1950s. That was indeed a repulsive set of events by which many innocent persons were hurt and today our national conscience wishes it could take back the damage done to them.&lt;p&gt;So why is this any different? It is easy enough to whip oneself up into a lather over Ms. Rice’s policies if one disagrees with them but what about the half of America (or whatever significant percentage) that does not. And why should this be relevant to board service?&lt;p&gt;Politics, religion, and social worldviews &lt;i&gt;divide&lt;/i&gt; people and have no place as limiting tests in a business environment. Scolding and finger-wagging was bad enough coming from a first-grade teacher trying to promote sanctimonious values back in the 1950s. Do we really want a counterpart agenda now setting rules for who can be a founder, who can be an investor, who can be a director, who can be a CEO, or who can otherwise take a prominent role in the startup world? The answer should be an &lt;i&gt;emphatic&lt;/i&gt; no.&lt;p&gt;Principle is more important here than a particular outcome. What happens with Ms. Rice is not the issue here. What matters is upholding the abiding principle (precious in a free society) that people can hold divergent views on such topics as politics, religion, and society without being punished for their views in a business context. People can and ought to be able to unite to form great companies without having to compare notes on how they voted in the last election or some similar matter having nothing whatever to do with whether someone can add value to the venture. This is central to startup culture. Let us not lose sight of something so basic.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MarkPNeyer</author><text>&amp;gt; I am proud to have always been vocally against the war, torture and the Patriot Act. I will continue to oppose the people who led these efforts and oppose anything they are involved with, staying true to my own personal values requires this.&lt;p&gt;I hope this extends to opposing the Obama administration, which has continued and extended war, torture, and the patriot act. If the tech community dumps anyone from any party who supports these policies, that&amp;#x27;s awesome.&lt;p&gt;Marissa Mayer at Yahoo, Mark Benoiff at SalesForce, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt at Google all gave large contributions to Obama, who extended the patriot act, defended bush torture, and maintains a &amp;#x27;kill list&amp;#x27; that took the life of an american citizen without trial. None of them are getting this kind of outrage.&lt;p&gt;I would love it if they were! I&amp;#x27;d love it if we held these tech leaders accountable for the horrendous policies their supported leaders have put in place.  You can&amp;#x27;t say you value your users&amp;#x27; privacy and then give money to candidates who don&amp;#x27;t share that value, unless you say &amp;quot;but these other policies that he supports matter more to me&amp;quot; - and then fine, give us a list of what you value more than protecting my privacy. Show me where I fall on this list of yours. A president who decides he supports gave marriage when it&amp;#x27;s poitically convient is not as important to me as a president who insists on defending my privacy.&lt;p&gt;So far this looks to be partisan. I hope it isn&amp;#x27;t. To be honest, I miss having GWB as a president, because then the smart people were all outraged at the horrible stuff the president was doing. Now the president is still doing the same horrible stuff, plus some new stuff, but the smart people aren&amp;#x27;t as upset anymore.</text></comment>
<story><title>Drop Dropbox</title><url>http://www.drop-dropbox.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>janj</author><text>Starting an unnecessary war is a big deal. Denying due process and torturing detainees is a big deal. The Patriot Act was one of the most un-American acts of Congress. Rice had a significant role in destroying the values I once thought were vitally important in claiming American exceptionalism. We can never get that back. We are now a country that starts unnecessary wars, tortures detainees and denies due process and spends vast resources on surveilling every citizen and she had a role in that. We will never be the country we once were before Rice and the Bush administration. I am proud to have always been vocally against the war, torture and the Patriot Act. I will continue to oppose the people who led these efforts and oppose anything they are involved with, staying true to my own personal values requires this.</text></item><item><author>grellas</author><text>Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world.&lt;p&gt;In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they view the world generally. Startup culture thirty years ago had a decidedly American flavor. Today, it does not because the world is big and diverse and because entrepreneurs today who do startups come from all sorts of cultures and backgrounds. Surely, those who come from such divergent backgrounds hold differing political and religious views. Some are conservative, others liberal, still others apolitical. Some are theists, others atheists. The variations are many but one thing is certain: &lt;i&gt;not all people think alike on political, religious, or social topics&lt;/i&gt;. These are issues that inherently will divide.&lt;p&gt;What happens, then, when people attempt to set political, social, or religious tests as criteria for who can hold important positions in a business organization? Well, it gets about as ugly as it can get, just as such tests proved ugly when used historically by, say, Christians to exclude Jews from holding important positions in society or to punish atheists for not holding to some prescribed creed.&lt;p&gt;One might say, &amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;this&lt;/i&gt; is different&amp;quot; because we are not holding to an arbitrary creed but rather to fundamental principles that ought to govern all humanity. Well, that is precisely how those who sought to impose thought control in other eras rationalized their conduct. &amp;quot;Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party&amp;quot; is a question that destroyed many careers as the blacklists proliferated back in the 1950s. That was indeed a repulsive set of events by which many innocent persons were hurt and today our national conscience wishes it could take back the damage done to them.&lt;p&gt;So why is this any different? It is easy enough to whip oneself up into a lather over Ms. Rice’s policies if one disagrees with them but what about the half of America (or whatever significant percentage) that does not. And why should this be relevant to board service?&lt;p&gt;Politics, religion, and social worldviews &lt;i&gt;divide&lt;/i&gt; people and have no place as limiting tests in a business environment. Scolding and finger-wagging was bad enough coming from a first-grade teacher trying to promote sanctimonious values back in the 1950s. Do we really want a counterpart agenda now setting rules for who can be a founder, who can be an investor, who can be a director, who can be a CEO, or who can otherwise take a prominent role in the startup world? The answer should be an &lt;i&gt;emphatic&lt;/i&gt; no.&lt;p&gt;Principle is more important here than a particular outcome. What happens with Ms. Rice is not the issue here. What matters is upholding the abiding principle (precious in a free society) that people can hold divergent views on such topics as politics, religion, and society without being punished for their views in a business context. People can and ought to be able to unite to form great companies without having to compare notes on how they voted in the last election or some similar matter having nothing whatever to do with whether someone can add value to the venture. This is central to startup culture. Let us not lose sight of something so basic.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sergiosgc</author><text>Big deal as it may be, the parent comment was placing the discussion in a plane you totally missed in your response.&lt;p&gt;The type of blackballing practiced by this campaign is similar to the kind of blackballing that ousted Brendan Eich. It is also a slippery slope.&lt;p&gt;Slippery slopes are dangerous. At each step of the way, you can reason about your present decision and easily justify it. Add all the steps and the picture is suddenly not so pretty. That is where the parent comment author aimed its reasoning.&lt;p&gt;You can only reason about slippery slopes by taking the long view; seeing where the slope leads to. Your comment takes the short view.</text></comment>