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The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter

94 points by spking 10y ago

exstudent2 10y ago
While I don't agree with everything Thiel believes, it's really, really refreshing to get a different take from the upper echelons of the tech industry. If you follow a lot of VCs and CEOs on Twitter you'll find that they have a nearly homogenous political groupthink. This industry needs more diversity of thought and Thiel stands alone in his strength to go against the grain and stand by his philosophy. Love his ideas or hate them, that's an admirable trait.
- gallonofmilk 10y ago
  I would have to agree with this.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  I don't understand how somebody who claims to be fact-driven and rational like Thiel can end up supporting Trump. If anything, he should be disgusted with the whole system and try to change it.
  - refurb 10y ago
    This is only my opinion, and could very well be off-base, but politics is all about compromise. You'll never find the perfect candidate to represent your beliefs. I'm guessing Thiel is thinking Trump is the best candidate to support the kind of changes he's looking for. Of course, you're free to disagree with that sentiment.
    - maxxxxx 10y ago
      I think Thiel is fine with crony capitalism under the guise of libertarianism. That's where things will probably go with Trump. There is a lot of money to be made.
    - colmvp 10y ago
      Exactly. As a counterpoint, I know many people who are against Hillary's voting records, flip-floppy history, and aggressive foreign policy doctrine, yet are going to vote for her because well... they'd rather have her than Trump.
  - 010a 10y ago
    Isn't that... the entirety of Trump's platform?
  - toss1941 10y ago
    What positions has Trump taken that you feel are against facts and adequate rational?
    - maxxxxx 10y ago
      He makes up a lot of facts on the fly and then claims that he has been misinterpreted. The whole wall to Mexico thing and have Mexico pay for it is ridiculous. Now he questions the NATO treaties. I haven't heard anything from him that indicates deep thinking about an issue.
      - goodcitizen147 10y ago
        Why is building a wall ridiculous? Humans have been buildings walls for thousands of years. Yes, NATO countries should be fulfilling their obligations under the NATO treaty. Seems reasonable to question that. > I haven't heard anything from him that indicates deep thinking about an issue. You haven't heard anything as filtered through CNN, NY Times, Huffington Post, Vox, or whatever other rag you read. Just watch the man's speeches about foreign policy or the aftermath of the Orlando shooting.
      - toss1941 10y ago
        I'll be honest I haven't been following a lot of his positions on things other than what spills over into the tech/security folks I follow on twitter and various other sites. I didn't know about the NATO comments but here's what I learned about him just today [0]: (edit: talking about whether Trump would defend Turkey if Russia invaded unprovoked): Trump said he would have to think about whether those countries “have fulfilled their obligations to us.” Trump clarified, “If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is yes.” It seems pretty rational to me; he's saying that if a country like Turkey wants to acquire the benefits of a military alliance they need to pay their fair share. On the surface that seems reasonable to me and honestly, from reading here if Erdrogan got attacked by Russia I doubt most of Trump's enemies would shed any tears about his stance on NATO anyway. [0] http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/21/trump-doesnt-care-about-erdogans-purges-says-he-may-not-honor-nato-treaty/#ixzz4F3u0HUDx http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/21/trump-doesnt-care-about-er...
  - exstudent2 10y ago
    > Thiel can end up supporting Trump I can't speak for him, but a lot of people see the break up of a homogenous status quo as a goal in and of itself. I don't support Trump because I don't like his policies but that's a hard position for me to take because I _do_ appreciate the utter slap in the face he's giving to traditional politicians who I view as perpetuating an extremely corrupt and damaging system.
    - pm90 10y ago
      If you think the US is extremely corrupt.... you should really take a look at India, Russia etc. Corruption is never elliminated by revolutions btw. It takes time and patience to reform the current system. It is not an overnight fix and thinking that Trump can have an overall positive influence on the US system is a huge error.
  - davidivadavid 10y ago
    I can't see what those things have to do with one another. Thiel can take perfectly rational, fact-driven decisions based on Trump's behavior, regardless of what it is. Indeed, it's completely possible that to achieve his goals, he must leverage Trump's misuse of "facts" and, erm, "creativity" with respect to truth.
  - DefaultUserHN 10y ago
    Can you clarify on what system you're talking about? And what are the problems with that system? And what should Thiel do to change it? And important, what does Thiel wants? And how does changing the system align with what he wants? You have to remember that Theil doesn't want the same thing you want. Just because you want something doesn't mean Theil want the same thing, or has the same goal. Theil knows exactly what he wants, that is why he supports Trump. It seems to be you who does not understand what Theil wants. Because if he wants the same thing you wants, he would have supported what you supported.
- smt88 10y ago
  > This industry needs more diversity of thought Sure, I agree. But there are some kinds of diversity that no industry needs. You wouldn't, for example, ever say, "Hey, Silicon Valley is full of non-racists. Let's get some more racists in here!" You'd instead be glad that Silicon Valley had a non-racist groupthink. The same is true of things like climate change, where "diversity" just means someone is dangerously wrong and living in the past. I don't intimately know Thiel's political views (above were just examples), but it seems that many people are worried that Thiel falls into that category of "diversity we don't need".
  - exstudent2 10y ago
    I think it's more subtle than that. The racist thing is a perfect example. I absolutely 100% think that Trump's opinions are racist. _However_ I also find the "progressives" who attack whites and objectify every other race to be equally racist. But because the latter controls the narrative in our industry and the framing of the message, many can't see the racism there or won't even acknowledge that it may exist.
- kenko 10y ago
  There's nothing admirable about "going against the grain" in itself. Probably most people in the upper echelons of tech wealth don't think it's a great idea to deport Muslims, and don't support Trump. I see no reason to admire someone for having a different opinion on that matter just because it's different. There are lots of ways to "go against the grain" in the way you point out. You could be an unthinking dogmatist. Nothing would change the way you feel, not even the censure of your peers. (Is Thiel being censured? Sure, by Pinboard on twitter. By his peers? Not that I can see. His richy-rich pals all still love him, AFAICT.) Is there something admirable about having your head in the ground? Not really---and I don't think that, on the broader social level, we tend to applaud people who still think gay sex is shameful and should be illegal, even though, you know, they really go against the grain. You could be, say, a modern Cato. But Cato is admirable not just because he fell on his sword but because he fell on his sword out of devotion to an admirable ideal. I see no reason, incidentally, to believe your claim that "Thiel stands alone in his strength to go against the grain". If other people aren't going against the grain, it might be that they think the grain is largely going in the right direction already, and not that they lack the strength to go against it. And, on the other hand, you have to pay a little attention to threads about diversity of race or gender to find a lot of people with the strength to go against the grain. Guess what: the grain they go against, Thiel goes with.
  - kenko 10y ago
    incidentally this is a good paper: https://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/ftawil.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/ftawil.pdf
  - goodcitizen147 10y ago
    You think doing an "as-a-minority" blog post or talk in SV takes strength? Why? The most echoed responses are all praise, especially praises for 'bravery'. Really man, do some higher order thinking here.
  - exstudent2 10y ago
    > There's nothing admirable about "going against the grain" in itself. There is if you think the grain is a corrupt and unfair system that needs dismantling. The enemy of my enemy is my friend thing. I would consider myself to have overlapping social thoughts with most liberals but it's really terrifying to me to have an absolute aggregation of media and executive power (in our industry) along one line of thinking (even if I agree with most of it!). Power needs to be distributed, not consolidated.
- Vaskivo 10y ago
  I agree. Quoting Christopher Hitchens (who is quoting John Stuart Mill): > "Indeed as John Stuart Mill said, if all in society were agreed on the truth and beauty and value of one proposition, all except one person, it would be most important–in fact, it would become even more important–that that one heretic be heard, because we would still benefit from his perhaps outrageous or appalling view" @maxxxxx I'm not an american, and don't follow closely american politics, but isn't supporting Trump "going against the system"?
- davesque 10y ago
  I don't understand how, in the case of tech CEOs, this so called "groupthink" is such a problem. The fact is, as you rely more and more on a system of reason and evidence to make your decisions, your opinions will tend to seem more and more consistent with other people who subscribe to that system. This consistency is just a side-effect of having a good system.
  - goodcitizen147 10y ago
    Yup that's why everyone was buying CDOs from Fannie Mae and flipping houses in 2007. That's why everyone in 1940s Germany thought it was a good idea to eliminate the Jews. Groupthink ftw!
- dirtyaura 10y ago
  Are they really that homogenous? I'm not from the USA, but it seems that there are both republicans (Andreessen and Horowitz, for example) and democrats (Eric Schmidt and Jack Dorsey, for example) among VCs and CEOs. Younger generation might have Sanders-style social democrat tendencies, but there are a lot of libertarians like Thiel in startup circles, though most of them don't mix conservative religious stances like Thiel does.
elcapitan 10y ago
How is "1. e4" an aggressive chess tactic? That's the most classical opening line of all.
- markokrajnc 10y ago
  I think "2. e5" would be atomic bomb then... ;-)
- jbellis 10y ago
  It's the f4 afterwards that made it aggressive for Fischer et al. It looks like the reporter didn't understand enough about chess to communicate that. But he did get the first move right!
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  - jackcarter 10y ago
    Fischer did not play the King's Gambit. http://www.academicchess.org/images/pdf/chessgames/fischerbust.pdf http://www.academicchess.org/images/pdf/chessgames/fischerbu...
- ZenSwordArts 10y ago
  Although calling 1.e4 aggressive is kind of inaccurate there is some truth behind it. You could at least consider it to be active or ambitious :) 1.e4 introduces a quick development of the white kingside and also the center usually is opened very early in the game. Still the article proves to be somehow unqualified in terms of chess with the following sentence: 'It’s an aggressive tactic, putting the bishop and queen into play.. '. Usually it is not a good idea to develop the queen early on and certainly not the idea behind 1.e4.
- bjacokes 10y ago
  I'm by no means a chess expert, but from commentary I've read on games between grandmasters, e4 is considered aggressive and d4 is considered conservative. Or rather, e4 leads to more tactical and exciting games (e.g. Sicilian) and d4 leads to slower, more strategic games. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game
bko 10y ago
> despite Trump’s advocacy of protectionist tariffs and extreme immigration restrictions, measures that would seem at odds with the radical libertarian image Thiel projects. This is what's most baffling considering Trump is the most statist candidate in modern politics. Most of his success is built on anti-immigration and tariffs. He may agree with more non-interventionist/isolationist foreign policy of Trump, but I don't see these as the cornerstone of his campaign. Also, he's been less consistent on those issues, in one breadth suggesting he wouldn't support NATO allies, and in another saying he would be aggressive in internationalist expansion in fighting terrorism. One theory is that he's an opportunist, and since he is such a unique surrogate of Trump, he will be in a unique position to promote his ideas. The Democratic side is likely more crowded in terms of tech-billionaires writing out checks for a sympathetic ear. He's simply hedging, which ironically he's against as well!
- falsestprophet 10y ago
  Thiel has opposed mass [1] immigration to the United States which should not be mistaken with opposition to all immigration. For context, only 15% of new lawful permanent residents in 2014 were selected for education or skill (the employment-preference category). [1] like (but not limited to) anyone who likes strolling over the border or overstaying visas
  - vkou 10y ago
    The net immigration rate to the US is 0.38%. That's hardly 'mass immigration.' I take it that means he's happy with the status quo? And, if not, when is he going back to Germany?
    - falsestprophet 10y ago
      10% of the California workforce is undocumented 5% of the national workforce is undocumented
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fundameen 10y ago
There is no evidence that Thiel is a genius. There's a large amount of evidence that he is not. And yet people still think that because one of his hundreds of investments made a lot of money that he must be a genius. He's just not who people want him to be. He's not another Musk.
- GuiA 10y ago
  Most Silicon Valley magnates are not geniuses. They're average to above-average smart, with other traits (grit, luck, the right connections, etc) that put them in their situation. Once you have a few dozen million dollars, it's not so hard to maintain and grow that (unless you go on idiotic spending sprees) because you start getting access to the kind of investments that have much higher expected returns than the kind of investments a blue collar worker has access to. But nerd culture values intelligence so much that we tell ourselves that of course Zuckerberg, Thiel, and others must be geniuses because a) how would they have gotten to where they are otherwise? and b) nerds like to think of themselves as geniuses as well, and therefore just one successful startup away from watching Game of Thrones with Zuck on a Sunday night. The problem with this is that we then don't recognize when those industry leaders are acting as ignorant/stupid as any other average educated person, and instead come up with convoluted explanation about how they're contrarians and they always play the most offensive move in chess and surely that must correlate to their political choices.
  - lisper 10y ago
    > Once you have a few dozen million dollars, it's not so hard to maintain and grow that (unless you go on idiotic spending sprees) because you start getting access to the kind of investments that have much higher expected returns than the kind of investments a blue collar worker has access to. This. This is really important to understand because it's the fundamental cause of the divide between the super-rich and everyone else. Not only do you get access, but you also can start to buy influence with the government to tilt the playing field in your favor. These two things cause a positive feedback effect that lets people above a certain threshold of wealth continue to grow that wealth at the expense of everyone else. The real problem is that everyone seems to want to believe that they too can reach this level of wealth by "working hard and playing by the rules". As a corollary, they believe that if you're not rich it must be because you didn't work hard enough or didn't play by the rules. Of course, this is false, but there's no way to fix the underlying problem as long as a majority accepts this false narrative.
GuiA 10y ago
The Diversity Myth, a 1995 book [Thiel] co-wrote with David O. Sacks, railed against multiculturalism, which, they wrote, “exists to destroy Western culture.” What is up with all these people lately thinking that Western culture is some form of homogeneous block that's been unadultered for millennia and has recently come under "multiculturalist" attack? Especially coming from the US, a country that didn't exist when my old high school was founded.
- mturmon 10y ago
  Or that "Western culture" is so fragile that it needs work to "defend" it -- against something so bland as multiculturalism? My culture is already an amalgam of many components, as you point out. Surely, whatever it is, it can expand or adapt to reckon with other cultures.
  - defen 10y ago
    There are different levels of culture. The "happy nice version" of multiculturalism involves surface-displays of culture - different groups of people have different kinds of food, different styles of dress, different accents/languages, different skin tones, but are otherwise nice friendly liberal people who believe in the core values of Western culture, such as the rule of law, equality before the law, relatively high trust in civic institutions, etc. Except, there are literally billions of people who don't believe in those things. There is not "magic dirt" in the USA or "The West" that gives us those things - it's a function of the people who live there. If you were to import millions upon millions of people who don't share the values, while simultaneously teaching the youngest generation that white people are responsible for all the evils of the world, and encouraging minorities to nurse racial grievances, you're going to end up with problems. But it's impossible to talk about because you have unhinged racists on one side, and people who are prepared to see unhinged racists everywhere on the other.
    - mturmon 10y ago
      "teaching the youngest generation that white people are responsible for all the evils of the world" That's a strawman. We had been talking about basic multiculturalism. What you're talking about is the most unhinged versions of ethnocentric bigotry; say, the kind of thing Eldridge Cleaver had been associated with. These views were not widely proclaimed at the time and they are not widely followed now. Even revisionist history (say, Howard Zinn's US history) that places significant blame at the foot of the U.S. and U.S. leadership for historical tragedies does not come close to what you're talking about above.
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TorKlingberg 10y ago
Some portion of libertarians have become so blinded by their hate of leftists that they have dropped the whole "freedom" thing, and cheer for anything they see as anti-left - even if it is blatantly authoritarian.
- gallonofmilk 10y ago
  fear mongering much? "blatant authoritarian"
jedberg 10y ago
My favorite quote from this article (and slightly off topic): "On July 14 a group of 140 or so tech industry figures including Slack’s Stewart Butterfield, EBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, and, for some reason, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, released an open letter decrying Trump’s candidacy." Does anyone know why Jesse Jackson was included in that open letter?
- gallonofmilk 10y ago
  To hide the fact that they're nothing more than a bunch of privileged straight white males?
  - techer 10y ago
    Pierre is Persian
    - davidgay 10y ago
      I can't quite resist: https://www.google.com/?ion=1&espv=2#q=aryan https://www.google.com/?ion=1&espv=2#q=aryan (this is of course irrelevant to 21st century usage)
vasilipupkin 10y ago
Why is everyone surprised that Peter Thiel said this or said that? Is that because we expect Peter Thiel to be a genius, when he is just a person with probably a boatload of baggage, some brilliance and plenty of idiocy - similar to anybody else ?
- vasilipupkin 10y ago
  for example, if it's indeed true that Peter Thiel is skeptical of women's suffrage, then I think it is reasonable to conclude that he is probably at least to some extent an idiot and we should view his actions at least partially through that prism
  - boona 10y ago
    I would love to hear WHY he's skeptical. I'm sure he's heard all the traditional arguments like we have, which means he has additional information that I don't. Don't you think it's more intellectually honest to question and hear what others have to say rather than just paint them as idiots because they don't believe what you believe.
    - mwfunk 10y ago
      Why would you assume that someone who mentions Thiel's statements about women's suffrage hasn't heard his arguments? Don't you think it's more intellectually honest to question and hear what others have to say rather than just paint them as idiots because they don't believe what you believe? Also, do you think that it is even theoretically possible for someone to make a meaningful argument that women's suffrage is somehow a bad thing? I certainly don't.
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meira 10y ago
Unlikely? Lol.
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tim333 10y ago
Video of his RNC speech on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVHoGiSCfmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVHoGiSCfmU (6 mins)

94 points by spking 10y ago

While I don't agree with everything Thiel believes, it's really, really refreshing to get a different take from the upper echelons of the tech industry. If you follow a lot of VCs and CEOs on Twitter you'll find that they have a nearly homogenous political groupthink. This industry needs more diversity of thought and Thiel stands alone in his strength to go against the grain and stand by his philosophy. Love his ideas or hate them, that's an admirable trait.

gallonofmilk 10y ago
I would have to agree with this.
maxxxxx 10y ago
I don't understand how somebody who claims to be fact-driven and rational like Thiel can end up supporting Trump. If anything, he should be disgusted with the whole system and try to change it.
- refurb 10y ago
  This is only my opinion, and could very well be off-base, but politics is all about compromise. You'll never find the perfect candidate to represent your beliefs. I'm guessing Thiel is thinking Trump is the best candidate to support the kind of changes he's looking for. Of course, you're free to disagree with that sentiment.
  - maxxxxx 10y ago
    I think Thiel is fine with crony capitalism under the guise of libertarianism. That's where things will probably go with Trump. There is a lot of money to be made.
  - colmvp 10y ago
    Exactly. As a counterpoint, I know many people who are against Hillary's voting records, flip-floppy history, and aggressive foreign policy doctrine, yet are going to vote for her because well... they'd rather have her than Trump.
- 010a 10y ago
  Isn't that... the entirety of Trump's platform?
- toss1941 10y ago
  What positions has Trump taken that you feel are against facts and adequate rational?
  - maxxxxx 10y ago
    He makes up a lot of facts on the fly and then claims that he has been misinterpreted. The whole wall to Mexico thing and have Mexico pay for it is ridiculous. Now he questions the NATO treaties. I haven't heard anything from him that indicates deep thinking about an issue.
    - goodcitizen147 10y ago
      Why is building a wall ridiculous? Humans have been buildings walls for thousands of years. Yes, NATO countries should be fulfilling their obligations under the NATO treaty. Seems reasonable to question that. > I haven't heard anything from him that indicates deep thinking about an issue. You haven't heard anything as filtered through CNN, NY Times, Huffington Post, Vox, or whatever other rag you read. Just watch the man's speeches about foreign policy or the aftermath of the Orlando shooting.
    - toss1941 10y ago
      I'll be honest I haven't been following a lot of his positions on things other than what spills over into the tech/security folks I follow on twitter and various other sites. I didn't know about the NATO comments but here's what I learned about him just today [0]: (edit: talking about whether Trump would defend Turkey if Russia invaded unprovoked): Trump said he would have to think about whether those countries “have fulfilled their obligations to us.” Trump clarified, “If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is yes.” It seems pretty rational to me; he's saying that if a country like Turkey wants to acquire the benefits of a military alliance they need to pay their fair share. On the surface that seems reasonable to me and honestly, from reading here if Erdrogan got attacked by Russia I doubt most of Trump's enemies would shed any tears about his stance on NATO anyway. [0] http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/21/trump-doesnt-care-about-erdogans-purges-says-he-may-not-honor-nato-treaty/#ixzz4F3u0HUDx http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/21/trump-doesnt-care-about-er...
- exstudent2 10y ago
  > Thiel can end up supporting Trump I can't speak for him, but a lot of people see the break up of a homogenous status quo as a goal in and of itself. I don't support Trump because I don't like his policies but that's a hard position for me to take because I _do_ appreciate the utter slap in the face he's giving to traditional politicians who I view as perpetuating an extremely corrupt and damaging system.
  - pm90 10y ago
    If you think the US is extremely corrupt.... you should really take a look at India, Russia etc. Corruption is never elliminated by revolutions btw. It takes time and patience to reform the current system. It is not an overnight fix and thinking that Trump can have an overall positive influence on the US system is a huge error.
- davidivadavid 10y ago
  I can't see what those things have to do with one another. Thiel can take perfectly rational, fact-driven decisions based on Trump's behavior, regardless of what it is. Indeed, it's completely possible that to achieve his goals, he must leverage Trump's misuse of "facts" and, erm, "creativity" with respect to truth.
- DefaultUserHN 10y ago
  Can you clarify on what system you're talking about? And what are the problems with that system? And what should Thiel do to change it? And important, what does Thiel wants? And how does changing the system align with what he wants? You have to remember that Theil doesn't want the same thing you want. Just because you want something doesn't mean Theil want the same thing, or has the same goal. Theil knows exactly what he wants, that is why he supports Trump. It seems to be you who does not understand what Theil wants. Because if he wants the same thing you wants, he would have supported what you supported.
smt88 10y ago
> This industry needs more diversity of thought Sure, I agree. But there are some kinds of diversity that no industry needs. You wouldn't, for example, ever say, "Hey, Silicon Valley is full of non-racists. Let's get some more racists in here!" You'd instead be glad that Silicon Valley had a non-racist groupthink. The same is true of things like climate change, where "diversity" just means someone is dangerously wrong and living in the past. I don't intimately know Thiel's political views (above were just examples), but it seems that many people are worried that Thiel falls into that category of "diversity we don't need".
- exstudent2 10y ago
  I think it's more subtle than that. The racist thing is a perfect example. I absolutely 100% think that Trump's opinions are racist. _However_ I also find the "progressives" who attack whites and objectify every other race to be equally racist. But because the latter controls the narrative in our industry and the framing of the message, many can't see the racism there or won't even acknowledge that it may exist.
kenko 10y ago
There's nothing admirable about "going against the grain" in itself. Probably most people in the upper echelons of tech wealth don't think it's a great idea to deport Muslims, and don't support Trump. I see no reason to admire someone for having a different opinion on that matter just because it's different. There are lots of ways to "go against the grain" in the way you point out. You could be an unthinking dogmatist. Nothing would change the way you feel, not even the censure of your peers. (Is Thiel being censured? Sure, by Pinboard on twitter. By his peers? Not that I can see. His richy-rich pals all still love him, AFAICT.) Is there something admirable about having your head in the ground? Not really---and I don't think that, on the broader social level, we tend to applaud people who still think gay sex is shameful and should be illegal, even though, you know, they really go against the grain. You could be, say, a modern Cato. But Cato is admirable not just because he fell on his sword but because he fell on his sword out of devotion to an admirable ideal. I see no reason, incidentally, to believe your claim that "Thiel stands alone in his strength to go against the grain". If other people aren't going against the grain, it might be that they think the grain is largely going in the right direction already, and not that they lack the strength to go against it. And, on the other hand, you have to pay a little attention to threads about diversity of race or gender to find a lot of people with the strength to go against the grain. Guess what: the grain they go against, Thiel goes with.
- kenko 10y ago
  incidentally this is a good paper: https://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/ftawil.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/ftawil.pdf
- goodcitizen147 10y ago
  You think doing an "as-a-minority" blog post or talk in SV takes strength? Why? The most echoed responses are all praise, especially praises for 'bravery'. Really man, do some higher order thinking here.
- exstudent2 10y ago
  > There's nothing admirable about "going against the grain" in itself. There is if you think the grain is a corrupt and unfair system that needs dismantling. The enemy of my enemy is my friend thing. I would consider myself to have overlapping social thoughts with most liberals but it's really terrifying to me to have an absolute aggregation of media and executive power (in our industry) along one line of thinking (even if I agree with most of it!). Power needs to be distributed, not consolidated.
Vaskivo 10y ago
I agree. Quoting Christopher Hitchens (who is quoting John Stuart Mill): > "Indeed as John Stuart Mill said, if all in society were agreed on the truth and beauty and value of one proposition, all except one person, it would be most important–in fact, it would become even more important–that that one heretic be heard, because we would still benefit from his perhaps outrageous or appalling view" @maxxxxx I'm not an american, and don't follow closely american politics, but isn't supporting Trump "going against the system"?
davesque 10y ago
I don't understand how, in the case of tech CEOs, this so called "groupthink" is such a problem. The fact is, as you rely more and more on a system of reason and evidence to make your decisions, your opinions will tend to seem more and more consistent with other people who subscribe to that system. This consistency is just a side-effect of having a good system.
- goodcitizen147 10y ago
  Yup that's why everyone was buying CDOs from Fannie Mae and flipping houses in 2007. That's why everyone in 1940s Germany thought it was a good idea to eliminate the Jews. Groupthink ftw!
dirtyaura 10y ago
Are they really that homogenous? I'm not from the USA, but it seems that there are both republicans (Andreessen and Horowitz, for example) and democrats (Eric Schmidt and Jack Dorsey, for example) among VCs and CEOs. Younger generation might have Sanders-style social democrat tendencies, but there are a lot of libertarians like Thiel in startup circles, though most of them don't mix conservative religious stances like Thiel does.

elcapitan 10y ago

How is "1. e4" an aggressive chess tactic? That's the most classical opening line of all.

markokrajnc 10y ago
I think "2. e5" would be atomic bomb then... ;-)
jbellis 10y ago
It's the f4 afterwards that made it aggressive for Fischer et al. It looks like the reporter didn't understand enough about chess to communicate that. But he did get the first move right!
- deleted 10y ago
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- jackcarter 10y ago
  Fischer did not play the King's Gambit. http://www.academicchess.org/images/pdf/chessgames/fischerbust.pdf http://www.academicchess.org/images/pdf/chessgames/fischerbu...
ZenSwordArts 10y ago
Although calling 1.e4 aggressive is kind of inaccurate there is some truth behind it. You could at least consider it to be active or ambitious :) 1.e4 introduces a quick development of the white kingside and also the center usually is opened very early in the game. Still the article proves to be somehow unqualified in terms of chess with the following sentence: 'It’s an aggressive tactic, putting the bishop and queen into play.. '. Usually it is not a good idea to develop the queen early on and certainly not the idea behind 1.e4.
bjacokes 10y ago
I'm by no means a chess expert, but from commentary I've read on games between grandmasters, e4 is considered aggressive and d4 is considered conservative. Or rather, e4 leads to more tactical and exciting games (e.g. Sicilian) and d4 leads to slower, more strategic games. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game

bko 10y ago

> despite Trump’s advocacy of protectionist tariffs and extreme immigration restrictions, measures that would seem at odds with the radical libertarian image Thiel projects. This is what's most baffling considering Trump is the most statist candidate in modern politics. Most of his success is built on anti-immigration and tariffs. He may agree with more non-interventionist/isolationist foreign policy of Trump, but I don't see these as the cornerstone of his campaign. Also, he's been less consistent on those issues, in one breadth suggesting he wouldn't support NATO allies, and in another saying he would be aggressive in internationalist expansion in fighting terrorism. One theory is that he's an opportunist, and since he is such a unique surrogate of Trump, he will be in a unique position to promote his ideas. The Democratic side is likely more crowded in terms of tech-billionaires writing out checks for a sympathetic ear. He's simply hedging, which ironically he's against as well!

falsestprophet 10y ago
Thiel has opposed mass [1] immigration to the United States which should not be mistaken with opposition to all immigration. For context, only 15% of new lawful permanent residents in 2014 were selected for education or skill (the employment-preference category). [1] like (but not limited to) anyone who likes strolling over the border or overstaying visas
- vkou 10y ago
  The net immigration rate to the US is 0.38%. That's hardly 'mass immigration.' I take it that means he's happy with the status quo? And, if not, when is he going back to Germany?
  - falsestprophet 10y ago
    10% of the California workforce is undocumented 5% of the national workforce is undocumented
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fundameen 10y ago

There is no evidence that Thiel is a genius. There's a large amount of evidence that he is not. And yet people still think that because one of his hundreds of investments made a lot of money that he must be a genius. He's just not who people want him to be. He's not another Musk.

GuiA 10y ago
Most Silicon Valley magnates are not geniuses. They're average to above-average smart, with other traits (grit, luck, the right connections, etc) that put them in their situation. Once you have a few dozen million dollars, it's not so hard to maintain and grow that (unless you go on idiotic spending sprees) because you start getting access to the kind of investments that have much higher expected returns than the kind of investments a blue collar worker has access to. But nerd culture values intelligence so much that we tell ourselves that of course Zuckerberg, Thiel, and others must be geniuses because a) how would they have gotten to where they are otherwise? and b) nerds like to think of themselves as geniuses as well, and therefore just one successful startup away from watching Game of Thrones with Zuck on a Sunday night. The problem with this is that we then don't recognize when those industry leaders are acting as ignorant/stupid as any other average educated person, and instead come up with convoluted explanation about how they're contrarians and they always play the most offensive move in chess and surely that must correlate to their political choices.
- lisper 10y ago
  > Once you have a few dozen million dollars, it's not so hard to maintain and grow that (unless you go on idiotic spending sprees) because you start getting access to the kind of investments that have much higher expected returns than the kind of investments a blue collar worker has access to. This. This is really important to understand because it's the fundamental cause of the divide between the super-rich and everyone else. Not only do you get access, but you also can start to buy influence with the government to tilt the playing field in your favor. These two things cause a positive feedback effect that lets people above a certain threshold of wealth continue to grow that wealth at the expense of everyone else. The real problem is that everyone seems to want to believe that they too can reach this level of wealth by "working hard and playing by the rules". As a corollary, they believe that if you're not rich it must be because you didn't work hard enough or didn't play by the rules. Of course, this is false, but there's no way to fix the underlying problem as long as a majority accepts this false narrative.

GuiA 10y ago

The Diversity Myth, a 1995 book [Thiel] co-wrote with David O. Sacks, railed against multiculturalism, which, they wrote, “exists to destroy Western culture.” What is up with all these people lately thinking that Western culture is some form of homogeneous block that's been unadultered for millennia and has recently come under "multiculturalist" attack? Especially coming from the US, a country that didn't exist when my old high school was founded.

mturmon 10y ago
Or that "Western culture" is so fragile that it needs work to "defend" it -- against something so bland as multiculturalism? My culture is already an amalgam of many components, as you point out. Surely, whatever it is, it can expand or adapt to reckon with other cultures.
- defen 10y ago
  There are different levels of culture. The "happy nice version" of multiculturalism involves surface-displays of culture - different groups of people have different kinds of food, different styles of dress, different accents/languages, different skin tones, but are otherwise nice friendly liberal people who believe in the core values of Western culture, such as the rule of law, equality before the law, relatively high trust in civic institutions, etc. Except, there are literally billions of people who don't believe in those things. There is not "magic dirt" in the USA or "The West" that gives us those things - it's a function of the people who live there. If you were to import millions upon millions of people who don't share the values, while simultaneously teaching the youngest generation that white people are responsible for all the evils of the world, and encouraging minorities to nurse racial grievances, you're going to end up with problems. But it's impossible to talk about because you have unhinged racists on one side, and people who are prepared to see unhinged racists everywhere on the other.
  - mturmon 10y ago
    "teaching the youngest generation that white people are responsible for all the evils of the world" That's a strawman. We had been talking about basic multiculturalism. What you're talking about is the most unhinged versions of ethnocentric bigotry; say, the kind of thing Eldridge Cleaver had been associated with. These views were not widely proclaimed at the time and they are not widely followed now. Even revisionist history (say, Howard Zinn's US history) that places significant blame at the foot of the U.S. and U.S. leadership for historical tragedies does not come close to what you're talking about above.

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TorKlingberg 10y ago

Some portion of libertarians have become so blinded by their hate of leftists that they have dropped the whole "freedom" thing, and cheer for anything they see as anti-left - even if it is blatantly authoritarian.

gallonofmilk 10y ago
fear mongering much? "blatant authoritarian"

jedberg 10y ago

My favorite quote from this article (and slightly off topic): "On July 14 a group of 140 or so tech industry figures including Slack’s Stewart Butterfield, EBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, and, for some reason, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, released an open letter decrying Trump’s candidacy." Does anyone know why Jesse Jackson was included in that open letter?

gallonofmilk 10y ago
To hide the fact that they're nothing more than a bunch of privileged straight white males?
- techer 10y ago
  Pierre is Persian
  - davidgay 10y ago
    I can't quite resist: https://www.google.com/?ion=1&espv=2#q=aryan https://www.google.com/?ion=1&espv=2#q=aryan (this is of course irrelevant to 21st century usage)

vasilipupkin 10y ago

Why is everyone surprised that Peter Thiel said this or said that? Is that because we expect Peter Thiel to be a genius, when he is just a person with probably a boatload of baggage, some brilliance and plenty of idiocy - similar to anybody else ?

vasilipupkin 10y ago
for example, if it's indeed true that Peter Thiel is skeptical of women's suffrage, then I think it is reasonable to conclude that he is probably at least to some extent an idiot and we should view his actions at least partially through that prism
- boona 10y ago
  I would love to hear WHY he's skeptical. I'm sure he's heard all the traditional arguments like we have, which means he has additional information that I don't. Don't you think it's more intellectually honest to question and hear what others have to say rather than just paint them as idiots because they don't believe what you believe.
  - mwfunk 10y ago
    Why would you assume that someone who mentions Thiel's statements about women's suffrage hasn't heard his arguments? Don't you think it's more intellectually honest to question and hear what others have to say rather than just paint them as idiots because they don't believe what you believe? Also, do you think that it is even theoretically possible for someone to make a meaningful argument that women's suffrage is somehow a bad thing? I certainly don't.
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meira 10y ago

Unlikely? Lol.

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tim333 10y ago

Video of his RNC speech on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVHoGiSCfmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVHoGiSCfmU (6 mins)