3 ms·

This still just seems unsubstantiated. Can you point to what is hand waving or what important things are left out?

by p4wnc6 10y ago

internaut 10y ago
Am tired. Also tipsy. So bear that in mind. >Indeed, what Thiel is doing used to be illegal. It isn't legally relevant that Anglo-Norman laws would find Thiel guilty of something. They're from a different time and place to us. That's hand waving if we're talking legality. Now let's talk of selectively leaving facts out. Supposing there exist laws for chamberty and barratry in our society. Ok. Now has Thiel violated them? Chamberty isn't worth discussing because not even Gawker believes he did it for money. Barratry is defined in the article as vexatious litigation or incitement to it. What's left out is that Thiel did not incite litigation by searching for a person who could hypothetically sue Gawker and then proceed to financially motivate them. He found somebody definitely wanted to sue (I might be correct to say that he was already in the process of this) Gawker and supported that effort financially. It is vexatious litigation? No. This is when a frivolous lawsuit or meritless motions are repeatedly launched. This is left out. Hogan/Terry's lawsuit had merit and the judge evidently must have found it be be a straight forward black and white case of wrongdoing judging from the fact she awarded more compensation than requested (I think). Again, relevant information left out. If there existed a variety of bullshit lawsuits against Gawker, they would definitely be making us aware of that and pointing to Peter Thiel as the originator. Since they are not we can be reasonably sure they do not exist.
- p4wnc6 10y ago
  You unjustifiably dismiss champerty. Champerty is not merely participating in the financial outcome of another's legal result, rather it is participating in "the subject matter of the action." In this case, it's reasonable to argue Thiel is maintaining the suit in order to participate in the status or personal satisfaction of ensuring Gawker must pay a ruinous amount of money. In fact, that is the primary issue: that he is doing it because he personally doesn't like Gawker and derives personal pleasure from participating in Gawker's ruin. Champerty is, unarguably, highly relevant. I agree that it's not vexatious litigation. Most probably the litigation already existed and was deemed reasonable as it proceeded to be heard. Regarding your final paragraph, there actually is some question as to how many suits Thiel has helped support. If evidence were found that the common link was Gawker, that would heighten suspicion. Whether any of them were "bullshit" would be open for the asking. And even if they were permissible suits by the letter of the law, Thiel's actions could still be worthy of significant criticism and warning in regards to effects on press freedom. A lot of the defenses I see for Thiel go along the lines of "but what he's doing is legal by the letter of the law." I find this silly, because most of the criticism in this situation is focused on saying that it's morally wrong and violates the spirit of the law, and might be a good prompt to ask questions about legal reform.
  - internaut 10y ago
    > A lot of the defenses I see for Thiel go along the lines of "but what he's doing is legal by the letter of the law." I find this silly, because most of the criticism in this situation is focused on saying that it's morally wrong and violates the spirit of the law. Frankly this is the argument you should have started with because Champerty is a throwback to a time trial by torture was probably also a legal principal. It is a distraction. Obviously morality and legality are not the same thing, but the people arguing that he did not break the law usually think that he also did the right thing morally. It is just that arguing over morality is much more convoluted then talking of legality. Legality is our most black/white argument so it's the one we tend to use in an argument. Makes sense, right? Morality is unlike the law in that the law strives for one interpretation. There exists a left wing morality and a right wing morality that have considerable overlap but which are two different sets. The funny thing to Thiel supporters is that the Left are contorting themselves into pretzels because the Robin Hood principal of taking from the rich and giving to the poor looks pretty funny here. That's why 75%+ of HN and arstechnica is on our side. Gawker went too far by egalitarian eyes as well. The truth is that this is a media war. It is about the establishment, the media, getting their yuckiest, loudest member taken out. The media feels discomfiture because Gawker represented the edge of how far you could go, and now that they are gone they have to redraw the boundaries of what is permissible so they don't meet a similar fate. Since we do not live in Stalinist Russia, this is fine. Otherwise the media is unimpeachable, always free from guilt and wrongdoing. That seems unlikely to everyone. So. Media people of the world. Climb down off the high horses. Take your lashings. You richly deserve them. Then quit whining and get back to doing decent journalism. Or you know. Maybe get a new job if you cannot do that. Taking about Champerty makes you look like sore losers and you know it.
    - p4wnc6 10y ago
      > Taking about Champerty makes you look like sore losers and you know it. This is weirdly personal, since I am not a member of the media and have no vested interest in the outcome. I'm interested in the moral implications, more for philosophical curiosity's sake, but it is very telling to me that you resort to this sort of statement and continue to say a lot of unsubstantiated things as excuses to dismiss champerty without actually dealing with it. > now that they are gone they have to redraw the boundaries of what is permissible so they don't meet a similar fate. That's a good way of putting it -- Thiel is attempting a certain kind of moral gerrymandering, which many people find to be quite obviously more frightening than the boundary transgressions he's using as his personal gerrymandering excuse. There will always be boundaries between these different sectors. I completely agree that Gawker straddled that boundary. The worrying thing is that a single wealthy person gets to redraw the boundary to suit his personal whims, with essentially no input from society at large (who, seemingly, derive lots of value from the service Gawker provides, evidenced by their willingness to pay Gawker with attention and dollars). Libertarian bros like Thiel (and you see this constantly in the HN echo chamber) love to come out in support of blurring legal boundaries, e.g. Uber being required to treat drivers as employees, because it is supposedly how society innovates away from stagnant laws that "should" be ignored by powerful companies to deliver value that customers indicate they want via paying dollars. Easier to ask for forgiveness for breaking or bending the law than to let your innovation be stifled while you ask for permission. Yet when it's inconvenient for them, such as in this situation with Gawker, they don't seem to care if people generally find it valuable (imputed from Gawker's success) and conveniently they suddenly do care about the specific letter of the law (something that, contrary to your blowhard comments above, is not of general interest when debating these things -- unless happening to focus on the letter of the law is convenient for the tech culture tribe in some given debate). Unsurprisingly hypocritical just like everyone else.

This still just seems unsubstantiated. Can you point to what is hand waving or what important things are left out?

by p4wnc6 10y ago

This still just seems unsubstantiated. Can you point to what is hand waving or what important things are left out?

Am tired. Also tipsy. So bear that in mind. >Indeed, what Thiel is doing used to be illegal. It isn't legally relevant that Anglo-Norman laws would find Thiel guilty of something. They're from a different time and place to us. That's hand waving if we're talking legality. Now let's talk of selectively leaving facts out. Supposing there exist laws for chamberty and barratry in our society. Ok. Now has Thiel violated them? Chamberty isn't worth discussing because not even Gawker believes he did it for money. Barratry is defined in the article as vexatious litigation or incitement to it. What's left out is that Thiel did not incite litigation by searching for a person who could hypothetically sue Gawker and then proceed to financially motivate them. He found somebody definitely wanted to sue (I might be correct to say that he was already in the process of this) Gawker and supported that effort financially. It is vexatious litigation? No. This is when a frivolous lawsuit or meritless motions are repeatedly launched. This is left out. Hogan/Terry's lawsuit had merit and the judge evidently must have found it be be a straight forward black and white case of wrongdoing judging from the fact she awarded more compensation than requested (I think). Again, relevant information left out. If there existed a variety of bullshit lawsuits against Gawker, they would definitely be making us aware of that and pointing to Peter Thiel as the originator. Since they are not we can be reasonably sure they do not exist.

p4wnc6 10y ago
You unjustifiably dismiss champerty. Champerty is not merely participating in the financial outcome of another's legal result, rather it is participating in "the subject matter of the action." In this case, it's reasonable to argue Thiel is maintaining the suit in order to participate in the status or personal satisfaction of ensuring Gawker must pay a ruinous amount of money. In fact, that is the primary issue: that he is doing it because he personally doesn't like Gawker and derives personal pleasure from participating in Gawker's ruin. Champerty is, unarguably, highly relevant. I agree that it's not vexatious litigation. Most probably the litigation already existed and was deemed reasonable as it proceeded to be heard. Regarding your final paragraph, there actually is some question as to how many suits Thiel has helped support. If evidence were found that the common link was Gawker, that would heighten suspicion. Whether any of them were "bullshit" would be open for the asking. And even if they were permissible suits by the letter of the law, Thiel's actions could still be worthy of significant criticism and warning in regards to effects on press freedom. A lot of the defenses I see for Thiel go along the lines of "but what he's doing is legal by the letter of the law." I find this silly, because most of the criticism in this situation is focused on saying that it's morally wrong and violates the spirit of the law, and might be a good prompt to ask questions about legal reform.
- internaut 10y ago
  > A lot of the defenses I see for Thiel go along the lines of "but what he's doing is legal by the letter of the law." I find this silly, because most of the criticism in this situation is focused on saying that it's morally wrong and violates the spirit of the law. Frankly this is the argument you should have started with because Champerty is a throwback to a time trial by torture was probably also a legal principal. It is a distraction. Obviously morality and legality are not the same thing, but the people arguing that he did not break the law usually think that he also did the right thing morally. It is just that arguing over morality is much more convoluted then talking of legality. Legality is our most black/white argument so it's the one we tend to use in an argument. Makes sense, right? Morality is unlike the law in that the law strives for one interpretation. There exists a left wing morality and a right wing morality that have considerable overlap but which are two different sets. The funny thing to Thiel supporters is that the Left are contorting themselves into pretzels because the Robin Hood principal of taking from the rich and giving to the poor looks pretty funny here. That's why 75%+ of HN and arstechnica is on our side. Gawker went too far by egalitarian eyes as well. The truth is that this is a media war. It is about the establishment, the media, getting their yuckiest, loudest member taken out. The media feels discomfiture because Gawker represented the edge of how far you could go, and now that they are gone they have to redraw the boundaries of what is permissible so they don't meet a similar fate. Since we do not live in Stalinist Russia, this is fine. Otherwise the media is unimpeachable, always free from guilt and wrongdoing. That seems unlikely to everyone. So. Media people of the world. Climb down off the high horses. Take your lashings. You richly deserve them. Then quit whining and get back to doing decent journalism. Or you know. Maybe get a new job if you cannot do that. Taking about Champerty makes you look like sore losers and you know it.
  - p4wnc6 10y ago
    > Taking about Champerty makes you look like sore losers and you know it. This is weirdly personal, since I am not a member of the media and have no vested interest in the outcome. I'm interested in the moral implications, more for philosophical curiosity's sake, but it is very telling to me that you resort to this sort of statement and continue to say a lot of unsubstantiated things as excuses to dismiss champerty without actually dealing with it. > now that they are gone they have to redraw the boundaries of what is permissible so they don't meet a similar fate. That's a good way of putting it -- Thiel is attempting a certain kind of moral gerrymandering, which many people find to be quite obviously more frightening than the boundary transgressions he's using as his personal gerrymandering excuse. There will always be boundaries between these different sectors. I completely agree that Gawker straddled that boundary. The worrying thing is that a single wealthy person gets to redraw the boundary to suit his personal whims, with essentially no input from society at large (who, seemingly, derive lots of value from the service Gawker provides, evidenced by their willingness to pay Gawker with attention and dollars). Libertarian bros like Thiel (and you see this constantly in the HN echo chamber) love to come out in support of blurring legal boundaries, e.g. Uber being required to treat drivers as employees, because it is supposedly how society innovates away from stagnant laws that "should" be ignored by powerful companies to deliver value that customers indicate they want via paying dollars. Easier to ask for forgiveness for breaking or bending the law than to let your innovation be stifled while you ask for permission. Yet when it's inconvenient for them, such as in this situation with Gawker, they don't seem to care if people generally find it valuable (imputed from Gawker's success) and conveniently they suddenly do care about the specific letter of the law (something that, contrary to your blowhard comments above, is not of general interest when debating these things -- unless happening to focus on the letter of the law is convenient for the tech culture tribe in some given debate). Unsurprisingly hypocritical just like everyone else.