<story><title>Google Doesn&apos;t Want What&apos;s Best for Us</title><url>https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/opinion/sunday/google-tech-diversity-memo.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bhauer</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Peter Thiel, one of the ideological leaders in the Valley, wrote in 2009 on a blog affiliated with the Cato Institute that “since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;If women should not even have the vote, why should we worry about gender diversity in the engineering ranks?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;These two paragraphs read as a microcosm of this whole episode.  Think what you may about Peter Thiel, but the quote does not say or even suggest that &amp;quot;women should not even have the vote.&amp;quot;  It merely points out that as the voting public has been broadened, it has been broadened to include sectors that are not (historically) as amenable to limited-government policies.  Therefore, the relative popularity of limited-government policy among the totality of voters has diminished, suggesting that democracy and capitalism are presently at odds.  Reading the quote with a reasonable level of charity suggests Thiel would prefer to convince these voters of the appeal of limited-government policy, not revoke their right to vote.  Simultaneously, he is also presumably arguing, as many others have, that simply increasing voter turnout does not necessarily lead to better governance.&lt;p&gt;Can the New York Times point to any quote from Thiel that justifies the implication they have made here: that Thiel believes women should not have the right to vote?  Perhaps there is one; I really don&amp;#x27;t know much about Thiel.  But this quote alone isn&amp;#x27;t it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gaurav_v</author><text>Not only that; in response controversy arising from the 2009 essay he explicitly stated that &amp;quot;It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;See addendum to the essay at bottom:
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cato-unbound.org&amp;#x2F;2009&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;13&amp;#x2F;peter-thiel&amp;#x2F;education-libertarian&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cato-unbound.org&amp;#x2F;2009&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;13&amp;#x2F;peter-thiel&amp;#x2F;educatio...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lazy editing by the NYT.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google Doesn&apos;t Want What&apos;s Best for Us</title><url>https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/opinion/sunday/google-tech-diversity-memo.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bhauer</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Peter Thiel, one of the ideological leaders in the Valley, wrote in 2009 on a blog affiliated with the Cato Institute that “since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;If women should not even have the vote, why should we worry about gender diversity in the engineering ranks?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;These two paragraphs read as a microcosm of this whole episode.  Think what you may about Peter Thiel, but the quote does not say or even suggest that &amp;quot;women should not even have the vote.&amp;quot;  It merely points out that as the voting public has been broadened, it has been broadened to include sectors that are not (historically) as amenable to limited-government policies.  Therefore, the relative popularity of limited-government policy among the totality of voters has diminished, suggesting that democracy and capitalism are presently at odds.  Reading the quote with a reasonable level of charity suggests Thiel would prefer to convince these voters of the appeal of limited-government policy, not revoke their right to vote.  Simultaneously, he is also presumably arguing, as many others have, that simply increasing voter turnout does not necessarily lead to better governance.&lt;p&gt;Can the New York Times point to any quote from Thiel that justifies the implication they have made here: that Thiel believes women should not have the right to vote?  Perhaps there is one; I really don&amp;#x27;t know much about Thiel.  But this quote alone isn&amp;#x27;t it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>humanrebar</author><text>Also:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Last week, Google fired a software engineer for writing a memo that questioned the company’s gender diversity policies and made statements about women’s biological suitability for technical jobs.&lt;p&gt;This is a huge misrepresentation of the ideas of the memo.&lt;p&gt;This level of journalism, both from the writer and from the editors, is disappointing.</text></comment>