Thiel was an early believer that democracy is incompatible with freedom. And popular social media proved it even more right by making people believe that what's popular is truth, and then manipulating what s popular. It was a mistake from the start to believe in it. I hope he gets back on his libertarian roots and quits changing the world through democracy.
Thiel actively manipulates these same channels for his benefit. If you think he wasn't selling into the bitcoin pump all of last year that he helped provoke, you're incredibly naive. Much in the same way Musk pumped his own stock and sold (along with his brother) at the top.
Thiel has no principles. He is an empire builder. His goal is to protect his wealth and build it through whatever means possible. The writing is on the wall for big tech, and he has changed his tune accordingly.
How was Thiel pumping bitcoin and manipulating social media channels? He has no social media presence at all. I saw one speech at a Bitcoin conference that no one else really watched and I figured he liked the tech due to his politics. But he wasn't pumping it.
> Much in the same way Musk pumped his own stock and sold (along with his brother) at the top.
If he had a crystal ball about the future of the market and Tesla stock, why didn't he sell more? Seems like he left a lot of money on the table.
> Thiel has no principles. He is an empire builder. His goal is to protect his wealth and build it through whatever means possible
There are a lot of things you can say about Thiel but he's not all about protecting his wealth. He personally spent $10 million to fight Gawker for refusing a court order to take down an illegal sex tape of someone. He also suffered a huge reputational hit by supporting and funding Trump early on.
He has principles, just ones that you may not agree with.
I agree with this thesis. Democracy is indeed, incompatible with freedom. Most of the human rights and freedoms we perceive to be essential today, only appeared because in the times when they were invented (late 18th century), technology and social structure ensured that only elites could use them (so "universal"-ness of these rights was a lie), or no one at all could use them for harm.
When technology changed, we could see these liberties as harmful.
Freedom to own and bear arms was OK in the times of muskets, they were too slow to reload to try a school shooting. Freedom of speech was OK when it was about freedom to print and distribute a pamphlet (which meant having cash, connection, and rare level of education = belonging to the elite).
Now we have to either scrap democracy (resort to the kind of Putinism where police state ensures that there are no school shootings, and opinions of people do not matter thus making freedom of speech harmless), or scrap freedom, like in the Western Europe where the acceptable corridor of opinions and behaviour for expressing themselves without becoming outcasts is so narrow that no sort of public activity not sanctioned by the government appears possible.
Or more likely, what's going on already will just get stronger: switch to a two-tiered world where will be large nations comprised mainly of brainwashed serfs, and smaller rich nations where elites will still enjoy all rights and freedoms - harmless because they are elites, and sustainable because they are fed by money plundered from the aforementioned large nations.
I also agree that the two are incompatible, but in a different way: why don't we ditch the liberal concept of freedom and save democracy instead?
From the Online Etymology Dictionary, "freedom":
> Old English freodom "power of self-determination, state of free will; emancipation from slavery, deliverance;" see free (adj.) + -dom.
> Meaning "exemption from arbitrary or despotic control, civil liberty" is from late 14c.
> Meaning "possession of particular privileges" is from 1570s.
Isn't it interesting that the definition of freedom has changed from escape from control, to control itself? This happened roughly around the time when the Enlightenment started and liberal thoughts were beginning to spread in Europe, which is also the time when ideas of private property and capitalism were starting to take shape. Take note that one of the most fundamental "freedoms" of liberalism which is private property, can only be enforced by the state with violence or threats of violence, usually done by the police or the army. So at this point freedom has become an oxymoron, since to be free one has to submit to total authority of the law. I think neoliberalism is just an extension of this contradiction - you are encouraged to participate "freely" in the free market, which is held by the global financial system which is backed by the dollar and consequently the military powers of the United States. No matter where you escape to, any economic activity has to be done through the hegemonic powers of the world, and losing access to it means doom for your country and your people (ex. Cuba).
So I view Thiel's search for his ultimate ideal of freedom by ditching democracy is futile, since the liberal conception of freedom itself was already contradictory and impossible to achieve. He can only think of more totalitarian ways to enforce a "free" system upon the people (so probably they can do whatever they want, like you have already said). The problem is that believing in contradictions don't automatically make societies fall, as Deleuze has said: "No one has ever died from contradictions. And the more it breaks down, the more it schizophrenizes, the better it works, the American way.” So as you have described nicely in your last sentence, most people will continue to get fucked regardless, until we fucking do something about it.
By the way, Graeber has written a lot about the subject of freedom in many of his books and papers (the most evident one being his last book "The Dawn of Everything" co-written by Wengrow.) I think you'll enjoy his works if you have some shared sympathies with Thiel's views of libertarianism, regardless of if you're labelled left/right in the current political climate. Graeber has once written about a topic Thiel was also interested in ("Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit": https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declini...), and they've also met together and had a debate about this topic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF0cz9OmCGw).
While your points about the evolving (and currently manipulated) definition of freedom are good, I still can't fathom swapping it for democracy, were such a swap possible.
Under absolute freedom, I'm subject to the law of the jungle but otherwise unencumbered. Under absolute democracy, I'm subject to the whim of the majority.
Neither is ideal, of course, but I at least understand the law of the jungle; I'll be damned if I understand the majority, most of the time.
What's popular is truth for most people, since humans are herd animals, and being a contrarian can mean being marginalized.
In the antebellum South slavery was morally right, and it required to be a true outlier to speak out against it. People didn't independently discover this morality, they just copied what's popular.
You’re conflating truth and opinion. “Slavery is morally right” is an opinion (a shitty one), not a “truth”. Lying about objective truth is a much more egregious offense than pushing your shitty opinion, imo
>In the antebellum South slavery was morally right
I don't think this is correct, abolitionism was a thing particularly within the most religious (read:moral) groups of people. Only a tiny fraction of southerners owned slaves, most estimates put that number at under 2% of the population, and there isn't much evidence that the owners of slaves even claimed to have the moral high ground, let alone the 98% of the population that didn't own slaves.
That's not to say abolitionists saw all races as equal, and it also doesn't ignore those who tried to roll out the story of Ham to justify slavery, but there was no consensus on the morality of the institution even at its height. If there were and if it were considered the morally "right" thing to do then we would have seen far more people becoming slave owners, especially among the most religious.
Slavery was essentially a business decision, not a moral one. And not a very good business decision either, even if you can look past the evil of it all.
Just want to call out your 2% of the population claim. While maybe it is, 'technically correct', it gives a false impression. Slaves were counted among the population, thus skewing the number. Also, wives/women would not be counted as owning slaves, even if their husbands did. Same could be said about their children.
"The 1860 census shows that in the states that would soon secede from the Union, an average of more than 32 percent of white families owned enslaved people. Some states had far more slave owners (46 percent of families in South Carolina, 49 percent in Mississippi) while some had far fewer (20 percent of families in Arkansas)." (https://www.history.com/news/5-myths-about-slavery)
I have mixed feelings about both Thiel and his “Zero to One” coauthor Blake Masters who is running for Senator in my state of Arizona. I really don’t like either of their politics, but I enjoyed reading their book twice and agree with them on a a few philosophical things.
I too really enjoyed his book and speeches and similarly am not necessarily on board with a lot of his politics. I can't really square the reasoning though. I can't pinpoint the disconnect between their ideas and prescriptions.
I feel the same way about Taleb. I read all his books, some more than once and they taught me a lot. But sometimes he just has ridiculous positions and behavior. But with him I attribute to being incredibly petty and thin-skinned. For instance Snowden pointed out a series of tweets where he called people imbeciles and other names and now he literally tweets every month about how he's a fraud, traitor and Russian stooge. Same happened with an author of a popular Bitcoin book for which Taleb wrote an introduction praising Bitcoin. Since then Taleb disagreed with the covid policy criticisms coming from the author and all of a sudden Bitcoin was a ponzi scheme. It's really sad
The skills required to be a good capitalist are almost in direct opposition to the skills needed for good governance. Capitalism requires a certain degree of ruthlessness, a lot of risk taking, and maximizing efficiency. Politics (ideally) requires empathy, risk mitigation, and consensus building.
It also doesn't help that Thiel is a bit of a troll when it comes to politics. When talking about business/startups he comes across as fairly reasonable and composed. But when it comes to politics his words and actions take on a more Trumpian tone. And this tone pre-dates Trump's influence on politics. For example his Stanford Review work was fairly troll-ish in nature.
Taleb is basically a con artist imo. He writes about ideas which are obvious but obfuscated to seem insightful, then claims that mainstream experts don't agree with them, and implies that he was the first to understand it and that you must be a smart person because you see it all yourself. It's a vicious persuasive technique and it seems to be his entire MO. Constantly he will attack people by asserting they hold specific views and challenge them to defend them.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for Thiel, however, going against threats for free speech in big tech platforms and "trying to tear it all down" are two quite different things.
So the title is overly alarmistic IMHO. Greetings from Western Europe, we're I feel we still have better balance in both liberty and moderation.
I've always respected Thiel for his entrepreneurial prowess...But jeez, his politics are pretty insane (Note that I'm not American, but from a faraway land and nonetheless can sense this from my armchair).
The guy seems like a maniac with an aim to get whatever he wants, however he wants, with no care for the external effects.
I'm curious, do you believe far right is the sad part or nationalism?
I ask this because naturally I find both the far left and far right equally insane in their convictions (which never stand up to scrutiny). But being against nationalism is a separate issue and seems equally looney to me.
I believe in putting the needs of my nation, and my countrymen above all else. Is that nationalism? I am not against helping others, but not while there is still a single American suffering. Is that a supremacist view?
Basically, remember to put on your oxygen mask before helping others.
Putting on your oxygen mask before helping others is not a helpful analogy. You do this because if you don't get your own mask on you'll pass out and then both of you will be fucked. It's just the rational choice even if you're benevolent and want to help others.
If an american is thirsty and a canadian is bleeding out and you prefer to get the american some water, then that's a pretty dick move. If, say, all of europe is facing a severe energy crisis because of a war with russia against which the United States already has a significant interest; and you oppose sending european allies gas supplies because it'll raise prices at the pump for americans; then that's a pretty dick move. If you say the US should drop out of NATO because it pays the most and it can probably defend itself, that's a pretty dick move.
It is complicated, of course. But it ends with countries justifying their invasion and genocide of other countries because they have something your own country wants. Or maybe just because they think they're the best and nobody should exist but them. It'd be nice if more people were interested in being a good global citizen rather than grinding against the nash equilibrium at every step.
A lot of it is supremacism. And a lot of it takes another leap of ugliness saying whose a "true {country}ian", which becomes a racial, linguistic, or religious thing.
I don't think nationalism is particularly overrepresented in america. I do think radicalism individualism where you just can't comprehend doing things that benefit your neighbors over yourself because a cooperative society is stronger as a whole is somewhat uniquely american. and it's embarrassing.
> I do think radicalism individualism where you just can't comprehend doing things that benefit your neighbors over yourself because a cooperative society is stronger as a whole is somewhat uniquely american
My neighbors are American. I'm not sure how you don't see the argument you're making is just the globalist version of mine.
A lot of your argument seems to be rooted in idealism. I don't want my country to collapse because we were so arrogant to think we could save everyone.
> You do this because if you don't get your own mask on you'll pass out and then both of you will be fucked.
Yes, that was my point. What do you think will happen if America is trying to help it's allies while it is bleeding out?
> My neighbors are American. I'm not sure how you don't see the argument you're making is just the globalist version of mine.
That is the point, genius. That wasn't about you specifically. It is a general problem in America. And the one's who think America must come first in any situation, are just mildly better. But of course tends to just be the politically aligned subset of the population of their own particular state. Woo.
> A lot of your argument seems to be rooted in idealism. I don't want my country to collapse because we were so arrogant to think we could save everyone.
Strawman
> Yes, that was my point. What do you think will happen if America is trying to help it's allies while it is bleeding out?
This is not a problem and it's not exclusive to America. It's human nature for concern to be correlated to social proximity. Not sure what your issue is to be honest but it appears you just have an issue with anyone who doesn't care about the things you appear to.
> genius
Thank you
> Strawman
Maybe learn what that means if you're going to use it
> America is not bleeding out
I can see you are detatched from the reality your average American is living
Maybe stop having a duopoly politic, and give people more chances then to choose between pest an cholera would help more then being against "far right" and with that automatically have to vote for democrats, but hey i think both democrats and republicans love that, the old ping pong.
Are you able to do a steelman of Thiel's politics, where Thiel himself would agree with your characterization?
What are his views that you agree with most? What don't you have any direct evidence of his views for?
I'm going to be honest, I can't say I've seen many articles that really try to understand Thiel's politics or intentions. Every article I read I can easily tell who the writer votes for, because there are signs of bias everywhere. I've never voted right, but the continued demonization of those who disagree with whatever is en vogue on the left and the refusal to truly try to understand them is incredibly dispiriting.
...which really did bring out many weaknesses and contradictions in his ideas. Which was disappointing, since many here on HN praised him as a pretty bright thinker.
First of all, I'll repeat that I'm not an American and neither an expert on (presumably) your country's politics, so this is just my armchair observation.
Thiel is funding a new breed of politicians with "hard-right" ideals. The first is Donald Trump [1], which I don't think I need to expatiate following those riots (that was widely used to mock the USA) globally.
His, protégé, Blake Masters, is running for the Arizona Senate position (backed by $10 million+ of Thiel's donations [2]). Masters has some unique ideas, such as opposing Roe vs Wade (abortion rights) and expanding gun rights (in his words, "Eliminating or restructuring the ATF, Repealing the National Firearms Act, and Opposing every kind of federal firearms database or gun registry"). You can see them right on his website - https://www.blakemasters.com/.
Also, JD Vance (backed by $10 million+ of Thiel's money [2]). Vance also has some unique ideas, such as promoting claims that Trump lost the election because of voter fraud [3] or suggesting that Biden was intentionally allowing fentanyl to flood the US because it mainly affected the Republican base [4]. You can check his website and see policy ideals similar to Masters' - https://jdvance.com/issues/.
Now, I'm not saying that everything about them is bad (everyone has flaws). I tried my best to use non-biased political resources (Reuters and Politico have a great rep on my end).
I don't understand much about American politics, but from the little I know, if I was there, I'd be nothing close to a "leftist", but more like a pro-capitalist "conservative", so I'm not really looking at this stuff from a biased lens.
So, from my foreign armchair, I just look at some stuff US politicians say and do (mostly Republicans for unclear reasons) and I'm like, nah dude, that's too extreme...
Thanks for sharing some personal context. I'll admit, when people use the terms "hard", "extreme", "alt" before a political direction, I don't really know what they're actually signifying in terms of substantive views.
I'm still having trouble squaring what his views are from the description (not a demand for more rigor here, just an honest appraisal) here. Sure, Trump was looney/incompetent/corrupt, and JD Vance/Blake Masters have said a few things that we can criticize, but I don't know if those pieces of evidence shed a light on Thiel's actual views. As an example, I voted for Biden/Democrats, but if you were looking at what they say/do (particularly the most controversial things in the media) as the only evidence for my views, you wouldn't understand my positions very well.
To share my version of a steelman for Thiel (I'll admit a lot of ignorance here, so anybody please correct me), it seems like there is a major throughline in a lot of what he does around Centralization vs Decentralization.
I get the impression he is for Decentralization of governments/power at large. This can show up in national politics as showing support for local nation ideals (as opposed to a more globalist perspective), limiting the scope/size of government, support for federalism, support for cryptocurrencies, support for individual rights/freedoms, support for testing new government models (i.e. Seasteading Institute), pushing back on the entrenched establishment, etc.
Is every politician he supports going to follow that playbook directly? I wouldn't expect them to. But the Centralization vs Decentralization dimension seems like something he may be thinking about if I'm reading the tea leaves. About how the individual relates to powerful entities, and what is the best relationship between the individual and the state/power for the future of humanity.
If that is in fact what his views are, I don't think they are insane myself. Yes, individual politicians can be wacky/insane, but I think there are a lot of reasonable positions/considerations on both sides that come out of thinking about that broader topic, whether any one politician is truly representing it.
> Are you able to do a steelman of Thiel's politics, where Thiel himself would agree with your characterization?
Would someone acting in bad faith ever agree to such a thing? Maybe you could goad him into saying yes once but the right tends to use terms like "strawman" or "silencing" as a thought terminating cliche without any attempt to make clarifications.
I don't know anything of Thiel's politics besides his support for Trump, but it's difficult to imagine such a person could be a serious thinker or would have any serious political positions.
You could say the same thing (perhaps more appropriately) about Biden, who has no mental faculties. Trump’s platform appeals to those who take domestic issues seriously, full stop. Biden on the other hand appeals to emotion and orange man bad. Which is less serious?
Edit: Just because you don't want something to be true doesn't make it untrue.
> I can't say I've seen many articles that really try to understand Thiel's politics or intentions
I mean...it's not like there is much to understand. Him, Mercer and Bannon became extremely passionate about getting Trump in the WH and as soon as 2017 came around they lost all the leverage and didn't even try to strongarm Trump into doing whatever they thought was to be done.
The 3 men have been extremely relevant in getting Trump elected but were essentially gone by 2017.
Whatever they are/were he had 4 years to propel them, but quickly fell out of the inner circle of Trump.
He's also all over the place. He claimed that competition is for fools and have to think long and hard to get in a sector without competition....but also said that we should abolish college because people should go with their gut, also somewhat regret the 80s when everybody was high on stimulants
If I were an American I would settle for any democratic political power other than what they have now. The sheer display of corruption and incompetence is simply overwhelming.
There's a little bit of an implication in the piece that Thiel's anti-China stance is bad. The implication is set up simply by juxtaposition with other more objectionable things. But, in isolation, it's reasonable. Like this:
> Thiel began to espouse increasingly strong anti-China views, including the belief that U.S. tech companies were harboring Chinese spies. In 2019 he claimed that Google, a longtime target of Thiel’s attacks, was being “infiltrated” by Chinese intelligence and called the company “treasonous.” He later attacked Apple for relying on China for its supply chain.
Like, Google probably does have CCP intelligence inside. And Apple's reliance on China is a problem. And, even though Google did originally have some Defense ties (especially via Eric Schmidt. Also connections to the Obama White House, and maybe to CIA (for Google Earth)), it absolutely has refused to work on Defense (project Maven; attempts to move Boston Dynamics out of Defense). Is he actually wrong here?
I would hope that America's Democrats are not going to be to China as Germany's Socialists and Greens are to Russia. And I don't think they are in general; remember the Pacific Pivot was Obama's.
This is a clickbait-y title that at best, misunderstands his motives, and at worst, misrepresents what is in actuality happening.
The "right" has historically had more implied trust from heavy-duty surveillance mechanisms of government than the left.
What the left is doing is censoring "politically-incorrect" (as they see fit) speech, and banning accounts; this then is driving members censored/shadow-banned/outright banned by the leftist thread of big tech consumer companies to find/invent tech alternatives.
This then is opening up a potential Pandora's box of surveillance problems for such surveillance mechanisms; for example, the historical reality of Microsoft's origins wasn't at all what Microsoft's P.R. department claimed ("Bill Gates is a unique entrepreneurial genius and gift to mankind, not unlike the second coming of Jesus (actually literally-stated implications of a popular Gates-criticizing Reddit post from about a year or so ago that got immediately brigaded by a swarm of bots/P.R. agents all lavishing praise on everything Gates-related), but rather a practical measure taken to address a then-serious and quickly-growing-out-of-control practical problem: before Microsoft, the home computer market had something in the order of 3,700+ unique operating systems; a decision was made that it would be far more efficient to take a "Lord of the Rings" approach rather than having experts on hand uniquely-qualified in all 3,700+ OSs.
What Thiel is doing by signaling to the "Far Right" which is in itself another emotionally-triggering clickbait term meant to get more views from the left rather than an accurate depiction of political reality is simply extending his historical approach to its logical conclusion.
The surveillance mechanisms came out with a project that mysteriously was "discontinued" literally days before "Thefacebook.com" was registered as a domain name; said project literally described ... pretty much "Facebook" to a tee.
Now Facebook and other social media companies are viewed as not only "Leftist" in politics (abstractly mostly irrelevant), but in their application of their political leaning, by kicking out an increasingly-larger portion of the populace who doesn't "adopt" their "way of thinking" ... these social media institutions are ironically doing the exact opposite of what the surveillance mechanism wants them to do: corral users into homogenous, easy-to-track pens.
He's not at all "tearing down tech" as much as signaling that it may be time for "yet another" social media giant that is more permissive in its approach to user content, and so can more easily attract a larger audience in a homogenous technical pen that will be easier to keep track of automatically instead of having human analysts constantly trying to keep track of things manually by interacting with a dozen or more increasingly wonky user interfaces.
I have no references for this but my guess would be related to the idea that there are two genders and those genders cannot/should not be changed. Most of the time when I see people ask your question they are trying to draw out something to do with racism, but that's really quite the strawman; very few conservatives are seeking the ability to use racial slurs under the guise of free speech.
I think what people are getting banned from social media for is scepticism of the concept of 'gender identity', particularly when it is used to override the material reality of sex.
It's not only a viewpoint held by many conservatives, but also basically all radical feminists, who are the polar opposite to conservatives in both general political stance and their reasoning behind rejecting the ideology of gender identity. From my observations, in practice it seems to be the radical feminists getting censored for this on social media much more than the conservatives.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 62.2 ms ] threadThiel has no principles. He is an empire builder. His goal is to protect his wealth and build it through whatever means possible. The writing is on the wall for big tech, and he has changed his tune accordingly.
That's what GP is saying...
> Much in the same way Musk pumped his own stock and sold (along with his brother) at the top.
If he had a crystal ball about the future of the market and Tesla stock, why didn't he sell more? Seems like he left a lot of money on the table.
> Thiel has no principles. He is an empire builder. His goal is to protect his wealth and build it through whatever means possible
There are a lot of things you can say about Thiel but he's not all about protecting his wealth. He personally spent $10 million to fight Gawker for refusing a court order to take down an illegal sex tape of someone. He also suffered a huge reputational hit by supporting and funding Trump early on.
He has principles, just ones that you may not agree with.
When technology changed, we could see these liberties as harmful.
Freedom to own and bear arms was OK in the times of muskets, they were too slow to reload to try a school shooting. Freedom of speech was OK when it was about freedom to print and distribute a pamphlet (which meant having cash, connection, and rare level of education = belonging to the elite).
Now we have to either scrap democracy (resort to the kind of Putinism where police state ensures that there are no school shootings, and opinions of people do not matter thus making freedom of speech harmless), or scrap freedom, like in the Western Europe where the acceptable corridor of opinions and behaviour for expressing themselves without becoming outcasts is so narrow that no sort of public activity not sanctioned by the government appears possible.
Or more likely, what's going on already will just get stronger: switch to a two-tiered world where will be large nations comprised mainly of brainwashed serfs, and smaller rich nations where elites will still enjoy all rights and freedoms - harmless because they are elites, and sustainable because they are fed by money plundered from the aforementioned large nations.
From the Online Etymology Dictionary, "freedom":
> Old English freodom "power of self-determination, state of free will; emancipation from slavery, deliverance;" see free (adj.) + -dom.
> Meaning "exemption from arbitrary or despotic control, civil liberty" is from late 14c.
> Meaning "possession of particular privileges" is from 1570s.
Isn't it interesting that the definition of freedom has changed from escape from control, to control itself? This happened roughly around the time when the Enlightenment started and liberal thoughts were beginning to spread in Europe, which is also the time when ideas of private property and capitalism were starting to take shape. Take note that one of the most fundamental "freedoms" of liberalism which is private property, can only be enforced by the state with violence or threats of violence, usually done by the police or the army. So at this point freedom has become an oxymoron, since to be free one has to submit to total authority of the law. I think neoliberalism is just an extension of this contradiction - you are encouraged to participate "freely" in the free market, which is held by the global financial system which is backed by the dollar and consequently the military powers of the United States. No matter where you escape to, any economic activity has to be done through the hegemonic powers of the world, and losing access to it means doom for your country and your people (ex. Cuba).
So I view Thiel's search for his ultimate ideal of freedom by ditching democracy is futile, since the liberal conception of freedom itself was already contradictory and impossible to achieve. He can only think of more totalitarian ways to enforce a "free" system upon the people (so probably they can do whatever they want, like you have already said). The problem is that believing in contradictions don't automatically make societies fall, as Deleuze has said: "No one has ever died from contradictions. And the more it breaks down, the more it schizophrenizes, the better it works, the American way.” So as you have described nicely in your last sentence, most people will continue to get fucked regardless, until we fucking do something about it.
By the way, Graeber has written a lot about the subject of freedom in many of his books and papers (the most evident one being his last book "The Dawn of Everything" co-written by Wengrow.) I think you'll enjoy his works if you have some shared sympathies with Thiel's views of libertarianism, regardless of if you're labelled left/right in the current political climate. Graeber has once written about a topic Thiel was also interested in ("Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit": https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declini...), and they've also met together and had a debate about this topic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF0cz9OmCGw).
Under absolute freedom, I'm subject to the law of the jungle but otherwise unencumbered. Under absolute democracy, I'm subject to the whim of the majority.
Neither is ideal, of course, but I at least understand the law of the jungle; I'll be damned if I understand the majority, most of the time.
In the antebellum South slavery was morally right, and it required to be a true outlier to speak out against it. People didn't independently discover this morality, they just copied what's popular.
This thread is discussing conflating popular opinions and truth.
I don't think this is correct, abolitionism was a thing particularly within the most religious (read:moral) groups of people. Only a tiny fraction of southerners owned slaves, most estimates put that number at under 2% of the population, and there isn't much evidence that the owners of slaves even claimed to have the moral high ground, let alone the 98% of the population that didn't own slaves.
That's not to say abolitionists saw all races as equal, and it also doesn't ignore those who tried to roll out the story of Ham to justify slavery, but there was no consensus on the morality of the institution even at its height. If there were and if it were considered the morally "right" thing to do then we would have seen far more people becoming slave owners, especially among the most religious.
Slavery was essentially a business decision, not a moral one. And not a very good business decision either, even if you can look past the evil of it all.
"The 1860 census shows that in the states that would soon secede from the Union, an average of more than 32 percent of white families owned enslaved people. Some states had far more slave owners (46 percent of families in South Carolina, 49 percent in Mississippi) while some had far fewer (20 percent of families in Arkansas)." (https://www.history.com/news/5-myths-about-slavery)
I feel the same way about Taleb. I read all his books, some more than once and they taught me a lot. But sometimes he just has ridiculous positions and behavior. But with him I attribute to being incredibly petty and thin-skinned. For instance Snowden pointed out a series of tweets where he called people imbeciles and other names and now he literally tweets every month about how he's a fraud, traitor and Russian stooge. Same happened with an author of a popular Bitcoin book for which Taleb wrote an introduction praising Bitcoin. Since then Taleb disagreed with the covid policy criticisms coming from the author and all of a sudden Bitcoin was a ponzi scheme. It's really sad
It also doesn't help that Thiel is a bit of a troll when it comes to politics. When talking about business/startups he comes across as fairly reasonable and composed. But when it comes to politics his words and actions take on a more Trumpian tone. And this tone pre-dates Trump's influence on politics. For example his Stanford Review work was fairly troll-ish in nature.
Politics requires primarily the skill to get elected.
So the title is overly alarmistic IMHO. Greetings from Western Europe, we're I feel we still have better balance in both liberty and moderation.
The guy seems like a maniac with an aim to get whatever he wants, however he wants, with no care for the external effects.
I ask this because naturally I find both the far left and far right equally insane in their convictions (which never stand up to scrutiny). But being against nationalism is a separate issue and seems equally looney to me.
Nationalism is not the same as patriotism. Patriotism is great. Nationalism breeds Ayn Rand insanity mixed with supremacist views.
Basically, remember to put on your oxygen mask before helping others.
As there will always be someone somewhere suffering, this just sounds like an excuse not to help others.
If an american is thirsty and a canadian is bleeding out and you prefer to get the american some water, then that's a pretty dick move. If, say, all of europe is facing a severe energy crisis because of a war with russia against which the United States already has a significant interest; and you oppose sending european allies gas supplies because it'll raise prices at the pump for americans; then that's a pretty dick move. If you say the US should drop out of NATO because it pays the most and it can probably defend itself, that's a pretty dick move.
It is complicated, of course. But it ends with countries justifying their invasion and genocide of other countries because they have something your own country wants. Or maybe just because they think they're the best and nobody should exist but them. It'd be nice if more people were interested in being a good global citizen rather than grinding against the nash equilibrium at every step.
A lot of it is supremacism. And a lot of it takes another leap of ugliness saying whose a "true {country}ian", which becomes a racial, linguistic, or religious thing.
I don't think nationalism is particularly overrepresented in america. I do think radicalism individualism where you just can't comprehend doing things that benefit your neighbors over yourself because a cooperative society is stronger as a whole is somewhat uniquely american. and it's embarrassing.
My neighbors are American. I'm not sure how you don't see the argument you're making is just the globalist version of mine.
A lot of your argument seems to be rooted in idealism. I don't want my country to collapse because we were so arrogant to think we could save everyone.
> You do this because if you don't get your own mask on you'll pass out and then both of you will be fucked.
Yes, that was my point. What do you think will happen if America is trying to help it's allies while it is bleeding out?
That is the point, genius. That wasn't about you specifically. It is a general problem in America. And the one's who think America must come first in any situation, are just mildly better. But of course tends to just be the politically aligned subset of the population of their own particular state. Woo.
> A lot of your argument seems to be rooted in idealism. I don't want my country to collapse because we were so arrogant to think we could save everyone.
Strawman
> Yes, that was my point. What do you think will happen if America is trying to help it's allies while it is bleeding out?
America is not bleeding out
This is not a problem and it's not exclusive to America. It's human nature for concern to be correlated to social proximity. Not sure what your issue is to be honest but it appears you just have an issue with anyone who doesn't care about the things you appear to.
> genius
Thank you
> Strawman
Maybe learn what that means if you're going to use it
> America is not bleeding out
I can see you are detatched from the reality your average American is living
Are you able to do a steelman of Thiel's politics, where Thiel himself would agree with your characterization?
What are his views that you agree with most? What don't you have any direct evidence of his views for?
I'm going to be honest, I can't say I've seen many articles that really try to understand Thiel's politics or intentions. Every article I read I can easily tell who the writer votes for, because there are signs of bias everywhere. I've never voted right, but the continued demonization of those who disagree with whatever is en vogue on the left and the refusal to truly try to understand them is incredibly dispiriting.
...which really did bring out many weaknesses and contradictions in his ideas. Which was disappointing, since many here on HN praised him as a pretty bright thinker.
Thiel is funding a new breed of politicians with "hard-right" ideals. The first is Donald Trump [1], which I don't think I need to expatiate following those riots (that was widely used to mock the USA) globally.
His, protégé, Blake Masters, is running for the Arizona Senate position (backed by $10 million+ of Thiel's donations [2]). Masters has some unique ideas, such as opposing Roe vs Wade (abortion rights) and expanding gun rights (in his words, "Eliminating or restructuring the ATF, Repealing the National Firearms Act, and Opposing every kind of federal firearms database or gun registry"). You can see them right on his website - https://www.blakemasters.com/.
Also, JD Vance (backed by $10 million+ of Thiel's money [2]). Vance also has some unique ideas, such as promoting claims that Trump lost the election because of voter fraud [3] or suggesting that Biden was intentionally allowing fentanyl to flood the US because it mainly affected the Republican base [4]. You can check his website and see policy ideals similar to Masters' - https://jdvance.com/issues/.
Now, I'm not saying that everything about them is bad (everyone has flaws). I tried my best to use non-biased political resources (Reuters and Politico have a great rep on my end).
I don't understand much about American politics, but from the little I know, if I was there, I'd be nothing close to a "leftist", but more like a pro-capitalist "conservative", so I'm not really looking at this stuff from a biased lens.
So, from my foreign armchair, I just look at some stuff US politicians say and do (mostly Republicans for unclear reasons) and I'm like, nah dude, that's too extreme...
1- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-thiel-...
2- https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/17/peter-thiel-senate-...
3- https://www.tribtoday.com/news/local-news/2021/10/vance-spou...
4- https://sports.yahoo.com/j-d-vance-wildly-suggests-021349250...
I'm still having trouble squaring what his views are from the description (not a demand for more rigor here, just an honest appraisal) here. Sure, Trump was looney/incompetent/corrupt, and JD Vance/Blake Masters have said a few things that we can criticize, but I don't know if those pieces of evidence shed a light on Thiel's actual views. As an example, I voted for Biden/Democrats, but if you were looking at what they say/do (particularly the most controversial things in the media) as the only evidence for my views, you wouldn't understand my positions very well.
To share my version of a steelman for Thiel (I'll admit a lot of ignorance here, so anybody please correct me), it seems like there is a major throughline in a lot of what he does around Centralization vs Decentralization.
I get the impression he is for Decentralization of governments/power at large. This can show up in national politics as showing support for local nation ideals (as opposed to a more globalist perspective), limiting the scope/size of government, support for federalism, support for cryptocurrencies, support for individual rights/freedoms, support for testing new government models (i.e. Seasteading Institute), pushing back on the entrenched establishment, etc.
Is every politician he supports going to follow that playbook directly? I wouldn't expect them to. But the Centralization vs Decentralization dimension seems like something he may be thinking about if I'm reading the tea leaves. About how the individual relates to powerful entities, and what is the best relationship between the individual and the state/power for the future of humanity.
If that is in fact what his views are, I don't think they are insane myself. Yes, individual politicians can be wacky/insane, but I think there are a lot of reasonable positions/considerations on both sides that come out of thinking about that broader topic, whether any one politician is truly representing it.
Would someone acting in bad faith ever agree to such a thing? Maybe you could goad him into saying yes once but the right tends to use terms like "strawman" or "silencing" as a thought terminating cliche without any attempt to make clarifications.
"bad faith" used in a political thread!
All your opinions are now null and void.
Edit: Just because you don't want something to be true doesn't make it untrue.
I mean...it's not like there is much to understand. Him, Mercer and Bannon became extremely passionate about getting Trump in the WH and as soon as 2017 came around they lost all the leverage and didn't even try to strongarm Trump into doing whatever they thought was to be done.
The 3 men have been extremely relevant in getting Trump elected but were essentially gone by 2017.
He's also all over the place. He claimed that competition is for fools and have to think long and hard to get in a sector without competition....but also said that we should abolish college because people should go with their gut, also somewhat regret the 80s when everybody was high on stimulants
> Thiel began to espouse increasingly strong anti-China views, including the belief that U.S. tech companies were harboring Chinese spies. In 2019 he claimed that Google, a longtime target of Thiel’s attacks, was being “infiltrated” by Chinese intelligence and called the company “treasonous.” He later attacked Apple for relying on China for its supply chain.
Like, Google probably does have CCP intelligence inside. And Apple's reliance on China is a problem. And, even though Google did originally have some Defense ties (especially via Eric Schmidt. Also connections to the Obama White House, and maybe to CIA (for Google Earth)), it absolutely has refused to work on Defense (project Maven; attempts to move Boston Dynamics out of Defense). Is he actually wrong here?
I would hope that America's Democrats are not going to be to China as Germany's Socialists and Greens are to Russia. And I don't think they are in general; remember the Pacific Pivot was Obama's.
Thiel can be right about this one thing.
The "right" has historically had more implied trust from heavy-duty surveillance mechanisms of government than the left.
What the left is doing is censoring "politically-incorrect" (as they see fit) speech, and banning accounts; this then is driving members censored/shadow-banned/outright banned by the leftist thread of big tech consumer companies to find/invent tech alternatives.
This then is opening up a potential Pandora's box of surveillance problems for such surveillance mechanisms; for example, the historical reality of Microsoft's origins wasn't at all what Microsoft's P.R. department claimed ("Bill Gates is a unique entrepreneurial genius and gift to mankind, not unlike the second coming of Jesus (actually literally-stated implications of a popular Gates-criticizing Reddit post from about a year or so ago that got immediately brigaded by a swarm of bots/P.R. agents all lavishing praise on everything Gates-related), but rather a practical measure taken to address a then-serious and quickly-growing-out-of-control practical problem: before Microsoft, the home computer market had something in the order of 3,700+ unique operating systems; a decision was made that it would be far more efficient to take a "Lord of the Rings" approach rather than having experts on hand uniquely-qualified in all 3,700+ OSs.
What Thiel is doing by signaling to the "Far Right" which is in itself another emotionally-triggering clickbait term meant to get more views from the left rather than an accurate depiction of political reality is simply extending his historical approach to its logical conclusion.
The surveillance mechanisms came out with a project that mysteriously was "discontinued" literally days before "Thefacebook.com" was registered as a domain name; said project literally described ... pretty much "Facebook" to a tee.
Now Facebook and other social media companies are viewed as not only "Leftist" in politics (abstractly mostly irrelevant), but in their application of their political leaning, by kicking out an increasingly-larger portion of the populace who doesn't "adopt" their "way of thinking" ... these social media institutions are ironically doing the exact opposite of what the surveillance mechanism wants them to do: corral users into homogenous, easy-to-track pens.
He's not at all "tearing down tech" as much as signaling that it may be time for "yet another" social media giant that is more permissive in its approach to user content, and so can more easily attract a larger audience in a homogenous technical pen that will be easier to keep track of automatically instead of having human analysts constantly trying to keep track of things manually by interacting with a dozen or more increasingly wonky user interfaces.
It's not only a viewpoint held by many conservatives, but also basically all radical feminists, who are the polar opposite to conservatives in both general political stance and their reasoning behind rejecting the ideology of gender identity. From my observations, in practice it seems to be the radical feminists getting censored for this on social media much more than the conservatives.