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It has been hypothesized that our brain's moral systems are a highjack of systems related to hygiene. I think this phenomenon shows it nicely. Since Thiel has

It has been hypothesized that our brain's moral systems are a highjack of systems related to hygiene. I think this phenomenon shows it nicely. Since Thiel has "touched" Trump, he is now "unclean" in the minds of people who perceive Trump through their morality circuits.

internaut 10y ago
Yes. And they will proceed further along those lines later on by monitoring all his associations. Nick Denton said as much "The details of your involvement will be gruesome if you continue suing us". Sounds like a threat to me. Thiel surely knows this but he's no coward. If I was him I'd have kept everything a secret. He must have weighted the probability of getting his funding discovered and then attacked by the Media Tribe against the (positive) deterrence factor plus being researched by (negative) private investigators i.e. blackmail efforts. It is ironic that the chilling effects argument would push him into more clandestine arrangements (it's a sinister cabal!). You can't make people happy these days. Far from a billionaire having more rights than the average person, the Media is really arguing they have less rights than the average person i.e. He shouldn't have funded Hogan openly or privately; that is not at all. Presumably if the average person decided to pull together a public fund for their hero Hulk Hogan it wouldn't be a problem. Nick Denton is not a very astute person. Just like in an ecosystem the foxes can't meaningfully 'win' against the rabbits. Some of the rich and powerful I know of would just have outright killed him for toying with them. Denton is depending on the morality of the people he attacks and that is not a very smart thing to do in the long run. That's not me being bombastic or making weird implicit threat. It is an observation of the reality for journalists around the world, the CPJ knows that very intimately. The irony is that if Thiel wasn't a supporter of the CPJ, didn't have strong convictions, then perhaps he'd be less likely to get attacked by the likes of Gawker. If Gawker ever went after real targets Denton would be joining something like the Ecuadorian Embassy. That is a fact. That's why we should be supporting real journalists and not this poser.
guelo 10y ago
Thank you for the psychoanalysis. However, I made a specific, logical point about how in another context Thiel is OK with the use of false facts to manipulate the public. It was not a moral or emotional argument.
deleted 10y ago
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internaut 10y ago

Yes. And they will proceed further along those lines later on by monitoring all his associations. Nick Denton said as much "The details of your involvement will be gruesome if you continue suing us". Sounds like a threat to me. Thiel surely knows this but he's no coward. If I was him I'd have kept everything a secret. He must have weighted the probability of getting his funding discovered and then attacked by the Media Tribe against the (positive) deterrence factor plus being researched by (negative) private investigators i.e. blackmail efforts. It is ironic that the chilling effects argument would push him into more clandestine arrangements (it's a sinister cabal!). You can't make people happy these days. Far from a billionaire having more rights than the average person, the Media is really arguing they have less rights than the average person i.e. He shouldn't have funded Hogan openly or privately; that is not at all. Presumably if the average person decided to pull together a public fund for their hero Hulk Hogan it wouldn't be a problem. Nick Denton is not a very astute person. Just like in an ecosystem the foxes can't meaningfully 'win' against the rabbits. Some of the rich and powerful I know of would just have outright killed him for toying with them. Denton is depending on the morality of the people he attacks and that is not a very smart thing to do in the long run. That's not me being bombastic or making weird implicit threat. It is an observation of the reality for journalists around the world, the CPJ knows that very intimately. The irony is that if Thiel wasn't a supporter of the CPJ, didn't have strong convictions, then perhaps he'd be less likely to get attacked by the likes of Gawker. If Gawker ever went after real targets Denton would be joining something like the Ecuadorian Embassy. That is a fact. That's why we should be supporting real journalists and not this poser.

guelo 10y ago

Thank you for the psychoanalysis. However, I made a specific, logical point about how in another context Thiel is OK with the use of false facts to manipulate the public. It was not a moral or emotional argument.

deleted 10y ago

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