> 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. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better.
Thiel isn't opposed to Women's suffrage, he's just noting that it had negative impacts (in his opinion). By that logic I'm opposed to social media.
Instagram, I still keep even though it is owned by Meta. (Just like I still keep WhatsApp even though it’s owned by Meta.) But I don’t use Instagram all that much. Instagram doesn’t even show up in the “Most Used” category in Screentime on my iPhone, for example. So for me, Instagram does not negatively affect me much. Probably mainly because I am not very active there these days.
TikTok, I spend quite a bit of time watching and posting to. But I don’t feel like it’s affecting me negatively in any way.
I deleted my Facebook account ages ago because I noticed that it was a waste of time and a drain of energy.
Reddit I use quite a bit. And your experience there depends greatly on what subreddits you subscribe to.
HN is certainly social media as well, mind you! And out of all, it is the one that has had the greatest positive impact on my life. A lot of my skills are thanks to HN. And even my current job, which I’ve had for a bit over a year now, is thanks to HN (and third party tools for filtering and searching “Who’s Hiring” threads.)
For me, social media has been a net positive. But it has required that I pay attention to where and what I spend my time and energy on. God knows I wasted a lot of hours playing FarmVille on Facebook back in 2009/2010 for example.
This is the first I'm hearing about this, but "opposition to women's suffrage" seems like a significant misreading.
The attitude of "I disagree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it", certainly can apply to voting too, and seems to be at work in this case.
That's the slippery slope people who want to take away rights exploit. Sure, you can believe women shouldn't vote. You can even go around telling people you believe women shouldn't vote. But just because you can say something, doesn't mean you should. If you say you don't believe freedom and democracy are incompatible, I am absolutely going to judge you for it because it's a stupid belief for which there is no evidence. There are several free democratic nations, a much larger number of unfree democratic nations, but there are no free undemocratic nations. And it doesn't take a degree in sociology to figure out why that is the case.
> 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.
What an asinine comment. What is it about Thiel that makes otherwise regular users shift into a reddit-dunk frenzy? He's just a guy, if you even read what you linked you'd find it pretty obvious that's not at all what he meant.
kypro|2 years ago
> 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. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better.
Thiel isn't opposed to Women's suffrage, he's just noting that it had negative impacts (in his opinion). By that logic I'm opposed to social media.
codetrotter|2 years ago
Facebook for me was a net negative.
Instagram, I still keep even though it is owned by Meta. (Just like I still keep WhatsApp even though it’s owned by Meta.) But I don’t use Instagram all that much. Instagram doesn’t even show up in the “Most Used” category in Screentime on my iPhone, for example. So for me, Instagram does not negatively affect me much. Probably mainly because I am not very active there these days.
TikTok, I spend quite a bit of time watching and posting to. But I don’t feel like it’s affecting me negatively in any way.
I deleted my Facebook account ages ago because I noticed that it was a waste of time and a drain of energy.
Reddit I use quite a bit. And your experience there depends greatly on what subreddits you subscribe to.
HN is certainly social media as well, mind you! And out of all, it is the one that has had the greatest positive impact on my life. A lot of my skills are thanks to HN. And even my current job, which I’ve had for a bit over a year now, is thanks to HN (and third party tools for filtering and searching “Who’s Hiring” threads.)
For me, social media has been a net positive. But it has required that I pay attention to where and what I spend my time and energy on. God knows I wasted a lot of hours playing FarmVille on Facebook back in 2009/2010 for example.
mitthrowaway2|2 years ago
The attitude of "I disagree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it", certainly can apply to voting too, and seems to be at work in this case.
jmopp|2 years ago
spacebanana7|2 years ago
E.g Without expressing opposition to the suffrage of the elderly, I could state that elderly people vote against many of the policies I like.
somedude895|2 years ago
Which is actually a common narrative at Huffington Post. Old people's voting patterns are holding us back. So yeah, you're spot on.
oblio|2 years ago
joenot443|2 years ago
roschdal|2 years ago
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ks2048|2 years ago
oblio|2 years ago
defrost|2 years ago