5 ms·

You unjustifiably dismiss champerty. Champerty is not merely participating in the financial outcome of another's legal result, rather it is participating in "th

• 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.
    • internaut 10y ago
      > 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. I apologize for implying you were one. It is just that after the TPM person used the word Champerty suddenly news outlets online started to use the word in a similar fashion within hours of each other (Qz, Vox). I have to wonder if that is coordinated in some way (like a party line) so I had the impression the media is piling on what I consider to be a poor line of argument. Indeed if you do a search of Thiel and Champerty you have a host of somewhat dodgy (urls I've never seen before) news websites pushing Champerty-Thiel stories. dailyreadlist.com onenewspage.com newsreality.com onlinegetnews.com webnewspost.com nationwidenewsbulletin.com veryinternationalpeople.com us.otpisal.com worldwidenewshub.com contacto-latino.com everydayreportage.com newsjs.com grabpage.info regator.com Never heard of them. Some of them are probably real... but I have to wonder about astroturfing. I realize that news syndication exists but Champerty is an unusual old word and I would wonder if some unscrupulous media organization (naming no names) decided to make a great deal of noise using it so that a typical person using a search engine would be left with a distinct impression of illegality on Thiel's part, which is of course not actually true as we discussed. My impression of the media remains the same but my irritation is not at you personally since you are at least providing a rational line of argument, you just got tagged along with all the champerty word using people as I flicked through my tabs. > 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). Now we're getting to the heart of the thing. Gawker used its employees hunting down salacious gossip and its treasure trove to then ward off attacks by lawyers in order to stretch moral boundaries. It then broke those boundaries by engaging in illegality and immoral behavior repeatedly. It stole private information from people. It stole stories from other journalists. Nick Denton hid profits from Gawker overseas to avoid tax. It was used by politicians and activists to launch hit jobs or character assassinations. That is why Gawker should be put back into its box. But nobody could put the lid on the box because an organization with a talent for destroying reputations is scary to people with influence and some politcos and media people like having Gawker around to run their dirty work for them. Then...! Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan. I'm sure you remember the ending of The Dark Knight. Why it was just like that. :-) "And we'll hunt him. But he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight." Mind The Dark Knight was a thoroughly conservative perspective. > 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. It's not being inconsistent. Most geeks are chaotic evil/neutral/good not lawful evil/neutral/good. Some companies break the law and do good. Some stay within the law and do bad. I think I made a distinction between morality and legality already above. Thiel incidentally is very much anti-Uber since he owns shares in its competition and calls Uber the most ethically challenged company in SV. You really can't knock libertarians on this basis, there's a wide spectrum of opposing thought on this issue within our ranks. > 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. And now we're back to name calling. What was your argument again? That people who argue that he didn't do anything wrong legally are amoral hypocrites? I'm sure they'd argue back that they're stating the facts which they'd consider to be a stronger line than tenuously invoking non-existent laws. We do have a moral code. But as I already said, moral codes are different for different people. Sometimes they overlap and sometimes they don't. I think we've reached an impasse so now I leave the argument.