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posted by on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the shhh-don't-tell-anybody dept.

National Journal's Rebecca Nelson reports about the Republicans lurking in the shadows of the Bay Area:

Deep in Silicon Valley, where the free market reigns and the exchange of ideas is celebrated, a subset of tech workers are hiding their true selves.

They're the tech company employees, startup founders, and CEOs who vote for and donate to Republican candidates, bucking the Bay Area's liberal supremacy. Fearing the repercussions of associating with a much-maligned minority, they keep their political views fiercely hidden.

The consequences for being outed for conservative views can be dire. In a highly public controversy last year, newly-hired Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich stepped down after critics attacked his 2008 donation to support Proposition 8, the anti-same-sex marriage law in California. Eich, who declined to comment for this story, faced an internal uprising from within the Mozilla community, as well as boycotts from other tech companies, and quit after just two weeks on the job.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:47AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:47AM (#168254) Journal

    Where have we heard of this before? The Boys From Brazil? The Lizard people from subterranean regions? Nazis on the Moon? History is made at night! Character is what you are in the dark! We must work, while the clock, she is a ticking!!! Where are we going to go? (response: "Planet Ten!") When are we going to go? (weak response: "Real soon!") Lord John Whorphin, may he rest in peace.

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  • (Score: 1) by rondon on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:17PM

    by rondon (5167) on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:17PM (#168476)

    Much of the time I have no idea WTF you are talking about, but I am almost always entertained.

    Side question for the crowd - is Aristarchus serious, or is this performance art?

    • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday April 11 2015, @11:41PM

      by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 11 2015, @11:41PM (#169144) Journal

      Of the comment in question which made perfect sense to me (but I'm weird so that might be the reason; sometimes weirdness overlaps) in addition to being insightful regarding an aspect/interpretation of the topic which goes something like “scary hidden republicans might inhabit the cubicle next to you and you can never tell: panic now” I would say that he's very serious but also seriously sarcastic/mocking. Is that performance art? One might say so but ‘performance art’ often has an implied meaning of being contrived or make-believe for its own sake so if so in this case he would have to play a character or feign an opinion and I don't think he did either. Maybe that's because I agree with (and beyond) and appreciated/enjoyed the sentiment and point I think he made: assuming everyone agrees with you is stupid in the first place and being afraid of that fact doubly so (the consequences however is a different story).

      But other times I'm deep in the WTF jungle and so far away I don't even hear the whoosh :)

      On-topic comment to TFA: once in university while waiting for a class another of the early birds¹ started talking with me about how awful so-and-so where, when I smilingly told him I was one of those so-and-so he made the closest possible human approximation of a cartoon character's jaw hitting the desk and it got very quiet :D

      Almost as bad as when you hear someone earnestly advocate some over-the-top version of your own opinions. Or the silent horror even if it's on a one-to-one basis with some stranger when its something very close to your own opinions that you know perfectly well is double-double-plus-ungood, super-thoughtcrime, and potentially physically dangerous (of the “random” violence and unsolved case kind) and they expect you to join in in agreement (either that's entrapment/surveillance or more likely it's a total moron with the awareness level of jelly).

      Now imagine everyone being like that (because everyone is like that): of course people start to shut up. There's no shortage of people losing their jobs for being “wrong” and there's no way to ensure that other people's reaction will be anywhere close to sensible since it's their reactions/preconceptions/bigotry etc. and nobody else's.

      ¹ who happened to be a communist/leftist/“liberal” and unfortunately more often than not this does not seem to be beside the point: what was that old meme? “Reality tends to have liberal bias”? Yeah, just not in the way those “liberals” intended it to be understood :P

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