11 ms·

Thiel might have ulterior motives, but his support of Trump is not too surprising if you've listened to his other ideas. He feels that the political agenda has

by tvural 10y ago

Thiel might have ulterior motives, but his support of Trump is not too surprising if you've listened to his other ideas. He feels that the political agenda has been overrun by distractions, like "who can use which bathroom", at the expense of real problems, like the stagnation of median wages over the last forty years. He prefers the days when the national conversation was about how to beat the Soviets, and sees the lack of substance in our political agenda today as tied to a slowdown in progress. So he probably prefers Trump's speeches about China and decaying inner cities to Clinton's about fairness and diversity. He believes that most of Silicon Valley is naive politically, and that the popularity of social liberalism there is just a moral fashion. He is a liberarian, and believes that the Valley's instincts are libertarian, not liberal. He has a slightly pessimistic outlook on the future, and believes that America has been falling behind since 1969, "when Woodstock started... and the hippies took over the country". That aligns well with the central point of Trump's campaign - America has started losing and we need to "make it great again". He's often said that one of his favorite interview questions is, "tell me something you believe to be true but which nobody agrees with you on". His support of Trump falls into that category. 40% of the population agrees with him, but the people closest to him see his opinion as unthinkable. He seems to take pleasure in having opinions like that. He has said that he believes climate change is "more pseudoscience than science", roughly agreeing with Trump. Thiel backed up his position by saying "whenever you can't have a debate, I often think that's evidence that there's a problem". He likely sees the stories that have come out against Trump recently as worth ignoring when the future of the country is at stake, and Trump is the only candidate who can focus the national agenda on the right issues.

bantunes 10y ago
That's all well and good, but Trump is still a terrible option. He never held office, he doesn't know how the system works, and doesn't have the temperament to be commander-in-chief. His tax plan will add trillions in debt over the next decade, and will only benefit the rich in the long run. So excuse me if I think Thiel just wants to pay less tax and sue people that piss him off. It's the rich coming to power in a more matter-of-fact way.
- DominikR 10y ago
  So he does not know the system but you know it well enough to know that his plan will add trillions to the debt?
  - bantunes 10y ago
    No, but I can read reports by the Tax Foundation http://taxfoundation.org/article/details-and-analysis-donald-trump-s-tax-plan http://taxfoundation.org/article/details-and-analysis-donald...
  - nindalf 10y ago
    Trump's so called economic plan has been trashed by reputable economists and publications. Its easy to see why - he advocates for low taxes and high spending simultaneously. I've read some of the other comments you've posted here, and noticed how impervious to logic you seem to be but surely you can see how low taxes and high spending is a combination that never mixes well. Never mind the Econ 101 level mistakes made in the report (it confused the meaning of "nominal"). Read the reviews of Trump's "plan" - Peterson Institute of International Economics called the plan "magical realism" - https://piie.com/blogs/trade-investment-policy-watch/scoring-trump-trade-plan-magical-thinking https://piie.com/blogs/trade-investment-policy-watch/scoring... - Matt Yglesias points out the stupidity of linking of GDP growth with reducing the trade deficit - http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/9/29/13075538/trump-trade-policy http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/9/29/13075538/tr... - Who is Peter Navarro (the supposed author of this mess)? - http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2016/09/who_is_peter_na.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2016/09/who_is_peter_na.... Links courtesy of this FiveThirtyEight article - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-and-clinton-have-little-to-say-about-slow-economic-growth/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-and-clinton-have-...
    - conistonwater 10y ago
      Also http://gregmankiw.blogspot.ca/2016/09/trumponomics.html http://gregmankiw.blogspot.ca/2016/09/trumponomics.html by Mankiw, a former chair of CEA under Bush.
untog 10y ago
None of what you wrote answers "why Trump?", though. If Thiel thinks he can somehow control Trump and get him to pursue a Libertarian agenda (which Trump's platform bares no resemblance to) then he's an idiot. If he wants Libertarianism he should donate to Gary Johnson. Anything else is just opportunism.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Flattering Gary Johnson isn't going to accomplish any political goals. Getting him into the 3rd debate might moderately raise awareness of the party, but he isn't going to win the election. Full stop.
  - untog 10y ago
    Neither, at this point, is Trump. So it's a bad investment either way.
- harryf 10y ago
  > Anything else is just opportunism. But that might be it. Trump clearly lacks a well oiled political machine behind him like Clinton. Should he win power there will no doubt a lot of opportunities opening up for anyone with a cheque and an agenda. I guess 1.5 million is not much to gamble for Thiel and will pay back 1000 to 1 if Trump were to succeed.
dcposch 10y ago
> He is a libertarian I just find this impossible to reconcile with his support for Trump, the most authoritarian presidential candidate in a very long time and possibly ever. I think many of his supporters would actually agree with that description, they like that about him, and they absolutely do not describe themselves as libertarian. They describe themselves as "conservatives" who want a "strong" president to "take their country back". They talk about "getting tough". -- I've lived in America my whole life, but I was born in Austria, and German is my first language. It pains me to see a fellow German-speaking immigrant support a right-wing populist who appeals pretty explicitly to white identity politics. We of all people should know better.
- madaxe_again 10y ago
  Conversely, he could from a family like mine - my Omi is Austrian, along with a slew of cousins. Dinner table conversation still turns to how things would have been better had herr Hitler won. My uncle has to leave the room he so vociferously objects to his mother and his children. So, that collective memory swings both ways. Maybe Thiel lacks education in history and pines for a glorious fictitious past, which is a core tenet of the trump campaign. And fascism. He may be a decent technologist and business person, but that doesn't make him wise.
  - AvenueIngres 10y ago
    Thiel has bachelor and JD degrees in Philosophy and Law from Stanford. I think it is a little bit preposterous to assume he holds his current views about Trump simply because he is too uneducated to think otherwise. >Maybe Thiel lacks education in history and pines for a glorious fictitious past, which is a core tenet of the trump campaign. And fascism. Maybe you are the one confusing narratives built around each candidate by one camp or another with actual ideological separation between those two candidates. Trump is not an authoritarian and Clinton is not a progressive. This election is about solving the great stagnation problem the world and the US are facing. Thiel understands that should Clinton win, there will be war and an ever increasing flow of immigration that will slowly grow to become impossible to assimilate into what is current mainstream American culture. > And fascism. Besides, this is not even the case. You understand concepts have definitions and you can manipulate those to fit whatever pisses you off in a candidate campaigning rhetoric.
madaxe_again 10y ago
Either that or he's shorting USD and looking to make a killing come November. Also, trump is no libertarian, he's an extreme authoritarian.
whack 10y ago
Some of Trump's strongest policy prescriptions include 1) Clamping down on immigration 2) Clamping down on free trade I don't see how any libertarian can be a fan of either.
- briandear 10y ago
  It isn't immigration, it's illegal immigration. It's also against the abuse of H1 visas. Incidentally Tata was a major donor to the Clinton Foundation and logically she supports H1 abuses: Here's a document from the 2008 Obama campaign about Clinton and her coziness with Indian H1 abusers: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/memo1.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/memo1.pdf Note that is a document from the Obama campaign -- not some republican hit piece. Libertarians do favor free trade, however free trade doesn't exist as long as governments (such as China,) manipulate currency or (such as France, specifically with Airbus,) provide heavy state subsidization for certain industries in order to compete with companies that aren't as subsidized. Free trade requires an end to all subsidies and market-distorting practices that disadvantage competitors. Trumps trade stances aren't in opposition to free trade in as much as they're in opposition to unfair trade -- China being a great example. US companies have to compete in manufacturing essentially with one hand tied behind their back -- stricter environmental rules, tougher labor rules and much higher taxation compared to China. So allowing unrestricted Chinese trade isn't 'free trade.' Not defending Trump or necessarily bashing Clinton, just providing some context for his 'opposition' to free trade and immigration. Trump's trade positions aren't much different than the EU -- when I import an American product into France, I pay huge duties and taxes -- importing something to the US from France -- rarely do I get hit with a huge tax bill from FedEx or UPS. I even had to pay taxes on $100 worth of kids clothes I ordered from the US. I've never had that happen when I bought something from the EU and had it shipped to the US.
  - josho 10y ago
    Good points. But what specific policy or changes occur under a Trump presidency? This past spring a 500% tariff was placed on Chinese steel. So, I have a hard time understanding what he's going to do different. That is my complaint with this election cycle that it's been all lip gloss and no substance so everyone concludes what they want about him.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>He feels that the political agenda has been overrun by distractions, like "who can use which bathroom", at the expense of real problems, like the stagnation of median wages over the last forty years. He prefers the days when the national conversation was about how to beat the Soviets, and sees the lack of substance in our political agenda today as tied to a slowdown in progress. Yes, and I agree with him. Strangely enough, when I thought about how to have a substantive politics, it led me to support Bernie Sanders. Now, you may not like Bernie yourself, but he sure as hell wasn't a climate-denying wannabe-dictator with a habit for sexual assault. If you believe politics ought to be about policy, then the Trump candidacy has been miserable for your goal. I can't see how Thiel can hold that goal and support Trump, unless I posit that Thiel is choosing attitude ("MAGA") over substance (mercantilism and a typically Republican dislike of science and technology). >He's often said that one of his favorite interview questions is, "tell me something you believe to be true but which nobody agrees with you on". Our society cannot grow or move forward until the finance/real-estate capital complex is removed from control.
tiatia 10y ago
"who can use which bathroom" Isn't this the major problem we have currently? Muslim terrorists. Warmongering Hillary, Zero Interest rates, crumbling infrastructure, imploding retirement funds. Who gives a fuck? But hey, bathroom problems.
thecrow1213 10y ago
I think it's funny that he's supporting the party that is making an issue out of the "who can use which bathroom" deal. Transgender people just want to use the bathroom they align with, it's the GOP that's making up stories about how children are at risk or some shit. Theil is an idiot.
- nolepointer 10y ago
  Except that Trump has said that he does not care who uses what bathroom at his hotels and such. So, no, Thiel isn't an idiot.
  - Merad 10y ago
    Except that Trump's running mate is a hardcore social conservative... and he would likely be one of the most powerful/influential VPs in American history thanks to Trump's lack of interest in the details of governing.
  - thecrow1213 10y ago
    But Republican politicians around the US have been introducing bills limiting who can use what bathroom, so the larger problem is the GOP as a whole doesn't know what it even believes. Thiel's and Trump's social ideals vary vastly from the rest of the party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathroom_bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathroom_bill
- nostrebored 10y ago
  The bathroom they align with? Do you believe in male and female brains? What makes someone align with a gender? The whole trans thing is regressive, homophobic, and medically unsound. Beyond that, the bathroom safety issue for women is real.
  - maxblackwood 10y ago
    Oh come on, really? In what way is "the whole trans thing" homophobic? As for female and male brains, there is plenty of evidence that male and female brains are significantly different.
nolepointer 10y ago
Nicely put. MAGA.
tlogan 10y ago
I'm not surprised at all that Thiel is for Trump: he was always more for preserving America as white a possible than libertarian guy. And Trump did for one important thing: we all know who are the racists and which organizations harbor and supporting racisms.
untilHellbanned 10y ago
I'm all for it but Trump isn't the guy to lead the change. He has no record of success and treats all humans terribly. If Somebody with a similar mindset on the business matters minus the catastrophic interpersonal issues runs in the future I'll happily elect them.
- _cbb1 10y ago
  Well, he actually does have a record of success. He wouldn't have a strong following if he treats all humans terribly.
Shivetya 10y ago
it won't matter on HN and this shit story does not belong here. There already have been too many stealth political stories posted to HN all bent one way. For supposedly open minded people techies (this happened on /. and ended that site for many) are the most bigoted close minded people you can find. They don't want to think, they want approval of supposed peers, peers they will never meet nor acknowledge them. The common trope is always, Republican candidates or Presidents are dumb, they are racists, they are homophobes, they are anti science, they are anti-name it. Yet no matter how much proof is offered that the candidate they will support instead will trounce their privacy rights, their freedoms, and more, they cannot be convinced otherwise. Shit like this does not belong on HN and thank god for the karma I have because fuck it, this type of crap is the reason to delete sites like this permanently from bookmarks. You want to go to the shitshow that /. became, don't do it. All three candidates have bad points, some more than others, but I will not vote for someone whose entire political career is one deceit after another and who turns a blind eye to the deaths their decisions have caused nor will I accept a candidate the press desperately wants and will never call on the carpet
vonnik 10y ago
PG has made a couple statements about Peter Thiel's position on Twitter[0], and PB has take a stand against ostracizing Trump supporters[1], so let's dig into this. The gist of the matter is: What should sane and compassionate people do about the Trump supporters in their lives? Many of us have them. Some of my family members support Trump, and I cannot fire them as family members or cancel Christmas, so I, and we, have to find another approach. There are different levels of engagement, and the three most important are: 1) Political. Trump supporters are asking for power, and they must be denied that power, because their candidate is a dangerous, emotionally unstable racist, a sexual predator, and man who would do deep damage to US democracy. We should take a hard political line and fight them with all legal means to exclude them from decision-making positions that affect the public interest. 2) Private/Social/Familial. What kind of private discussions can you have with Trump supporters? There are different kinds of supporters, and the discussions you can have with them will vary according to which battle in the culture war you choose. Like previous GOP candidates, Trump has gathered a coalition of single-issue voters behind him. These include the usual suspects 1) anti-abortion groups, gun-rights groups, and climate change deniers. But Trump also has the support of a) white nationalists and other racist groups[2][3]; and b) post-factual conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones who preach the existence of an evil and "alien force not of this world".[4] Anyone who has tried to argue someone out of their views on abortion or gun rights quickly finds that the discussion moving in circles, and pretty soon you've wasted a couple hours of your life. People don't change their minds, and "when faced with doubt, they shout even louder."[5] So sure, talk with them if you want, but adversarial debate is one of the least effective ways to engage with Trump supporters. Let's take Peter Thiel as an example: At the core of his RNC speech was the simple argument that the US government is broken and only Trump can fix it.[6] I agree that the USG is broken in a lot of areas, but hiring Trump to fix it, as someone funnier than me put it, would be like trying to cure eczema with a blow torch. Peter and I might agree on a lot of concrete, isolated problems with government, and he may have some pragmatic ideas for solving some of them, but when you go up one level of abstraction to a "total solution", there's not much to say. A debate between reason and irrationality leads no where. At the heart of Thiel's position is a question: How do you fix a complex, broken and long-standing system? There are two alternatives: reform or revolution. Clinton represents reform at best and the status quo at worst. She has my vote because she's sane and sanity has become surprisingly rare. Trump represents revolution. Most revolutionaries overestimate the good a total change will bring, and underestimate the damage. All they can see is the bad of the current situation. But most revolutions fail miserably. The Arab Spring failed violently in Libya, Egypt and Syria. The Iranian revolution of 1979 rang in decades of theocracy. In China and Russia, Marxist-Leninism ultimately killed tens of millions of people. The French revolution led to a century of political instability and the collapse of the French empire. The revolution that overthrew the decadence of Weimar Germany was called Nazism. In the wake of a revolution, you find that the new humans at the top are no better than the old ones, and generally less experienced. Without well thought out structures (like the separation of powers in the US constitution), the new elite will fail and be corrupted. Anyone who's had to refactor a large, complex and crappy code base has longed to start from scratch. But countries cannot "start from scratch" without massive turmoil and bloodshed. Revolutions mean violence. I don't think we need a revolution, but if we did, it should at least go in the right direction. Trump is not the right direction. Another important thing to remember is: some political views do not count as dissent, and cannot be accorded the same privileges as other forms of speech: hate speech and white nationalism don't count as dissent. Sexual predation and misogyny don't count as dissent. They are ugly prejudices, and it's not useful to listen to or engage them in a "debate". They have to be tackled in some other way. In public fora, we should present alternatives to Trump supporters' views, but in private conversation, we should build relationships with his supporters based on non-political common ground. Years down the road, some of them will come round, and when they do, that human connection will be their road of return. One of my siblings was in a cult for about a decade. We just nodded, laid down some light rules about proselytizing and turned the conversation to baseball. For years. And then one day they left the cult and we never heard about it again. 3) Root cause. This is the most important level of engagement. How do we address the factors that have lead us to this point? There are a lot of factors, but I think we can boil is down to one word: bubbles. People are living in bubbles. Wealth creates bubbles of isolation (Trump himself is a great example, and so is SV). Poverty creates bubbles of isolation, where people are not exposed to new ideas, other cultures and different kinds of people. And the media creates bubbles. Some of the media's bubbles are great (innocent weirdos congregate and find their human home on the Internet), and some are really damaging, because, as a nation, Americans no longer live in a shared reality or agree upon facts. Fox News has never cared about facts, and the GOP has done a lot to drive its supporters away from mainstream media where fact-checking actually happens. The FCC eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and since then US media and their audiences have grown increasingly polarized.[7] Maybe that was a mistake. Different types of bubbles can be burst in different ways. Internet media bubbles could be addressed, at least partially, with algorithms to recommend other types of content, but we would have to accept a benevolent algorithm-maker trying to change our minds.[8] Media bubbles cause bubbles of ideology -- destructive, self-perpetuating memes like anti-semitism and white nationalism. Those are hard to burst. It takes a huge commitment on the part of the people who are hated to go out, encounter the haters in a neutral context and demonstrate your humanity. It can be done. Sometimes it leads to a minor victory, like a racist realizing "not all n are bad." Really hard work. Bubbles of poverty can be burst by investing more time and money in poor communities, getting people to work and exposing them to the other in non-threatening ways. Maybe we're talking dance troupes and exchange students -- I don't know. To get to the root, we have to go beyond the media to the interests that are financing the culture wars and climate denial.[9][10] I don't have ready-made solutions for bursting bubbles, or cutting off the funds that are creating the ideologies that threaten the US and the whole species, but that's where we need to focus. The real issue is the dark money and Citizens United. Beyond that is only capitalism itself, the system that allows a few individuals for reasons of merit or inheritance to lay enormous social claims on the rest of society through the unequal allocation of wealth. We're living in a strange time. Large historical forces are at work in America, which are beyond the powers of any one person to address. This election cycle has taught me a lot about humans and group behavior, more than I ever wanted to know, and it's given me a surprising sympathy for the Germans whose lives were eclipsed by Nazism in the 1930s. Not all of them wanted it, but all of them got it. A few resisted and died; some fled; many sank into indifference and getting-by; and some saw it as a career opportunity. Just a few more percentage points in favor of Trump and all of America gets him, his walls, his deportations and his groping paws, too. And then we'll all have choices to make. [0] https://twitter.com/dhh/status/787547255259758592 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/787547255259758592 [1] https://twitter.com/paultoo/status/786990416537149441 https://twitter.com/paultoo/status/786990416537149441 [2] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-hate-groups-neo-nazi-white-supremacist-racism http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-hat... [3] http://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12256510/republican-party-trump-avik-roy http://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12256510/republican-party-trump... [4] http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/03/17/defending-donald-trump-alex-jones-warns-of-an-a/209345 http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/03/17/defending-donald-tr... [5] https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2010/10/why-people-dont-change-their-minds-even-when-faced-facts https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2010/10/why-people-d... [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTJB8AkT1dk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTJB8AkT1dk [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine [8] https://www.wired.com/2016/09/googles-clever-plan-stop-aspiring-isis-recruits/ https://www.wired.com/2016/09/googles-clever-plan-stop-aspir... [9] http://www.pnas.org/content/113/1/92.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/113/1/92.abstract [10] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-... [11] https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0385535597 https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radic...
cromwellian 10y ago
Yeah, a libertarian who got rich on CIA investments and contracts. Isn't it amazing how everything else is crony capitalism and government needs to stop interfering in the market except to make oneself rich and protect ones own assets?

by tvural 10y ago

bantunes 10y ago

That's all well and good, but Trump is still a terrible option. He never held office, he doesn't know how the system works, and doesn't have the temperament to be commander-in-chief. His tax plan will add trillions in debt over the next decade, and will only benefit the rich in the long run. So excuse me if I think Thiel just wants to pay less tax and sue people that piss him off. It's the rich coming to power in a more matter-of-fact way.

DominikR 10y ago
So he does not know the system but you know it well enough to know that his plan will add trillions to the debt?
- bantunes 10y ago
  No, but I can read reports by the Tax Foundation http://taxfoundation.org/article/details-and-analysis-donald-trump-s-tax-plan http://taxfoundation.org/article/details-and-analysis-donald...
- nindalf 10y ago
  Trump's so called economic plan has been trashed by reputable economists and publications. Its easy to see why - he advocates for low taxes and high spending simultaneously. I've read some of the other comments you've posted here, and noticed how impervious to logic you seem to be but surely you can see how low taxes and high spending is a combination that never mixes well. Never mind the Econ 101 level mistakes made in the report (it confused the meaning of "nominal"). Read the reviews of Trump's "plan" - Peterson Institute of International Economics called the plan "magical realism" - https://piie.com/blogs/trade-investment-policy-watch/scoring-trump-trade-plan-magical-thinking https://piie.com/blogs/trade-investment-policy-watch/scoring... - Matt Yglesias points out the stupidity of linking of GDP growth with reducing the trade deficit - http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/9/29/13075538/trump-trade-policy http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/9/29/13075538/tr... - Who is Peter Navarro (the supposed author of this mess)? - http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2016/09/who_is_peter_na.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2016/09/who_is_peter_na.... Links courtesy of this FiveThirtyEight article - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-and-clinton-have-little-to-say-about-slow-economic-growth/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-and-clinton-have-...
  - conistonwater 10y ago
    Also http://gregmankiw.blogspot.ca/2016/09/trumponomics.html http://gregmankiw.blogspot.ca/2016/09/trumponomics.html by Mankiw, a former chair of CEA under Bush.

untog 10y ago

None of what you wrote answers "why Trump?", though. If Thiel thinks he can somehow control Trump and get him to pursue a Libertarian agenda (which Trump's platform bares no resemblance to) then he's an idiot. If he wants Libertarianism he should donate to Gary Johnson. Anything else is just opportunism.

maxerickson 10y ago
Flattering Gary Johnson isn't going to accomplish any political goals. Getting him into the 3rd debate might moderately raise awareness of the party, but he isn't going to win the election. Full stop.
- untog 10y ago
  Neither, at this point, is Trump. So it's a bad investment either way.
harryf 10y ago
> Anything else is just opportunism. But that might be it. Trump clearly lacks a well oiled political machine behind him like Clinton. Should he win power there will no doubt a lot of opportunities opening up for anyone with a cheque and an agenda. I guess 1.5 million is not much to gamble for Thiel and will pay back 1000 to 1 if Trump were to succeed.

dcposch 10y ago

> He is a libertarian I just find this impossible to reconcile with his support for Trump, the most authoritarian presidential candidate in a very long time and possibly ever. I think many of his supporters would actually agree with that description, they like that about him, and they absolutely do not describe themselves as libertarian. They describe themselves as "conservatives" who want a "strong" president to "take their country back". They talk about "getting tough". -- I've lived in America my whole life, but I was born in Austria, and German is my first language. It pains me to see a fellow German-speaking immigrant support a right-wing populist who appeals pretty explicitly to white identity politics. We of all people should know better.

madaxe_again 10y ago
Conversely, he could from a family like mine - my Omi is Austrian, along with a slew of cousins. Dinner table conversation still turns to how things would have been better had herr Hitler won. My uncle has to leave the room he so vociferously objects to his mother and his children. So, that collective memory swings both ways. Maybe Thiel lacks education in history and pines for a glorious fictitious past, which is a core tenet of the trump campaign. And fascism. He may be a decent technologist and business person, but that doesn't make him wise.
- AvenueIngres 10y ago
  Thiel has bachelor and JD degrees in Philosophy and Law from Stanford. I think it is a little bit preposterous to assume he holds his current views about Trump simply because he is too uneducated to think otherwise. >Maybe Thiel lacks education in history and pines for a glorious fictitious past, which is a core tenet of the trump campaign. And fascism. Maybe you are the one confusing narratives built around each candidate by one camp or another with actual ideological separation between those two candidates. Trump is not an authoritarian and Clinton is not a progressive. This election is about solving the great stagnation problem the world and the US are facing. Thiel understands that should Clinton win, there will be war and an ever increasing flow of immigration that will slowly grow to become impossible to assimilate into what is current mainstream American culture. > And fascism. Besides, this is not even the case. You understand concepts have definitions and you can manipulate those to fit whatever pisses you off in a candidate campaigning rhetoric.

madaxe_again 10y ago

Either that or he's shorting USD and looking to make a killing come November. Also, trump is no libertarian, he's an extreme authoritarian.

whack 10y ago

Some of Trump's strongest policy prescriptions include 1) Clamping down on immigration 2) Clamping down on free trade I don't see how any libertarian can be a fan of either.

briandear 10y ago
It isn't immigration, it's illegal immigration. It's also against the abuse of H1 visas. Incidentally Tata was a major donor to the Clinton Foundation and logically she supports H1 abuses: Here's a document from the 2008 Obama campaign about Clinton and her coziness with Indian H1 abusers: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/memo1.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/memo1.pdf Note that is a document from the Obama campaign -- not some republican hit piece. Libertarians do favor free trade, however free trade doesn't exist as long as governments (such as China,) manipulate currency or (such as France, specifically with Airbus,) provide heavy state subsidization for certain industries in order to compete with companies that aren't as subsidized. Free trade requires an end to all subsidies and market-distorting practices that disadvantage competitors. Trumps trade stances aren't in opposition to free trade in as much as they're in opposition to unfair trade -- China being a great example. US companies have to compete in manufacturing essentially with one hand tied behind their back -- stricter environmental rules, tougher labor rules and much higher taxation compared to China. So allowing unrestricted Chinese trade isn't 'free trade.' Not defending Trump or necessarily bashing Clinton, just providing some context for his 'opposition' to free trade and immigration. Trump's trade positions aren't much different than the EU -- when I import an American product into France, I pay huge duties and taxes -- importing something to the US from France -- rarely do I get hit with a huge tax bill from FedEx or UPS. I even had to pay taxes on $100 worth of kids clothes I ordered from the US. I've never had that happen when I bought something from the EU and had it shipped to the US.
- josho 10y ago
  Good points. But what specific policy or changes occur under a Trump presidency? This past spring a 500% tariff was placed on Chinese steel. So, I have a hard time understanding what he's going to do different. That is my complaint with this election cycle that it's been all lip gloss and no substance so everyone concludes what they want about him.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>He feels that the political agenda has been overrun by distractions, like "who can use which bathroom", at the expense of real problems, like the stagnation of median wages over the last forty years. He prefers the days when the national conversation was about how to beat the Soviets, and sees the lack of substance in our political agenda today as tied to a slowdown in progress. Yes, and I agree with him. Strangely enough, when I thought about how to have a substantive politics, it led me to support Bernie Sanders. Now, you may not like Bernie yourself, but he sure as hell wasn't a climate-denying wannabe-dictator with a habit for sexual assault. If you believe politics ought to be about policy, then the Trump candidacy has been miserable for your goal. I can't see how Thiel can hold that goal and support Trump, unless I posit that Thiel is choosing attitude ("MAGA") over substance (mercantilism and a typically Republican dislike of science and technology). >He's often said that one of his favorite interview questions is, "tell me something you believe to be true but which nobody agrees with you on". Our society cannot grow or move forward until the finance/real-estate capital complex is removed from control.

tiatia 10y ago

"who can use which bathroom" Isn't this the major problem we have currently? Muslim terrorists. Warmongering Hillary, Zero Interest rates, crumbling infrastructure, imploding retirement funds. Who gives a fuck? But hey, bathroom problems.

thecrow1213 10y ago

I think it's funny that he's supporting the party that is making an issue out of the "who can use which bathroom" deal. Transgender people just want to use the bathroom they align with, it's the GOP that's making up stories about how children are at risk or some shit. Theil is an idiot.

nolepointer 10y ago
Except that Trump has said that he does not care who uses what bathroom at his hotels and such. So, no, Thiel isn't an idiot.
- Merad 10y ago
  Except that Trump's running mate is a hardcore social conservative... and he would likely be one of the most powerful/influential VPs in American history thanks to Trump's lack of interest in the details of governing.
- thecrow1213 10y ago
  But Republican politicians around the US have been introducing bills limiting who can use what bathroom, so the larger problem is the GOP as a whole doesn't know what it even believes. Thiel's and Trump's social ideals vary vastly from the rest of the party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathroom_bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathroom_bill
nostrebored 10y ago
The bathroom they align with? Do you believe in male and female brains? What makes someone align with a gender? The whole trans thing is regressive, homophobic, and medically unsound. Beyond that, the bathroom safety issue for women is real.
- maxblackwood 10y ago
  Oh come on, really? In what way is "the whole trans thing" homophobic? As for female and male brains, there is plenty of evidence that male and female brains are significantly different.

nolepointer 10y ago

Nicely put. MAGA.

tlogan 10y ago

I'm not surprised at all that Thiel is for Trump: he was always more for preserving America as white a possible than libertarian guy. And Trump did for one important thing: we all know who are the racists and which organizations harbor and supporting racisms.

untilHellbanned 10y ago

I'm all for it but Trump isn't the guy to lead the change. He has no record of success and treats all humans terribly. If Somebody with a similar mindset on the business matters minus the catastrophic interpersonal issues runs in the future I'll happily elect them.

_cbb1 10y ago
Well, he actually does have a record of success. He wouldn't have a strong following if he treats all humans terribly.

Shivetya 10y ago

it won't matter on HN and this shit story does not belong here. There already have been too many stealth political stories posted to HN all bent one way. For supposedly open minded people techies (this happened on /. and ended that site for many) are the most bigoted close minded people you can find. They don't want to think, they want approval of supposed peers, peers they will never meet nor acknowledge them. The common trope is always, Republican candidates or Presidents are dumb, they are racists, they are homophobes, they are anti science, they are anti-name it. Yet no matter how much proof is offered that the candidate they will support instead will trounce their privacy rights, their freedoms, and more, they cannot be convinced otherwise. Shit like this does not belong on HN and thank god for the karma I have because fuck it, this type of crap is the reason to delete sites like this permanently from bookmarks. You want to go to the shitshow that /. became, don't do it. All three candidates have bad points, some more than others, but I will not vote for someone whose entire political career is one deceit after another and who turns a blind eye to the deaths their decisions have caused nor will I accept a candidate the press desperately wants and will never call on the carpet

vonnik 10y ago

PG has made a couple statements about Peter Thiel's position on Twitter[0], and PB has take a stand against ostracizing Trump supporters[1], so let's dig into this. The gist of the matter is: What should sane and compassionate people do about the Trump supporters in their lives? Many of us have them. Some of my family members support Trump, and I cannot fire them as family members or cancel Christmas, so I, and we, have to find another approach. There are different levels of engagement, and the three most important are: 1) Political. Trump supporters are asking for power, and they must be denied that power, because their candidate is a dangerous, emotionally unstable racist, a sexual predator, and man who would do deep damage to US democracy. We should take a hard political line and fight them with all legal means to exclude them from decision-making positions that affect the public interest. 2) Private/Social/Familial. What kind of private discussions can you have with Trump supporters? There are different kinds of supporters, and the discussions you can have with them will vary according to which battle in the culture war you choose. Like previous GOP candidates, Trump has gathered a coalition of single-issue voters behind him. These include the usual suspects 1) anti-abortion groups, gun-rights groups, and climate change deniers. But Trump also has the support of a) white nationalists and other racist groups[2][3]; and b) post-factual conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones who preach the existence of an evil and "alien force not of this world".[4] Anyone who has tried to argue someone out of their views on abortion or gun rights quickly finds that the discussion moving in circles, and pretty soon you've wasted a couple hours of your life. People don't change their minds, and "when faced with doubt, they shout even louder."[5] So sure, talk with them if you want, but adversarial debate is one of the least effective ways to engage with Trump supporters. Let's take Peter Thiel as an example: At the core of his RNC speech was the simple argument that the US government is broken and only Trump can fix it.[6] I agree that the USG is broken in a lot of areas, but hiring Trump to fix it, as someone funnier than me put it, would be like trying to cure eczema with a blow torch. Peter and I might agree on a lot of concrete, isolated problems with government, and he may have some pragmatic ideas for solving some of them, but when you go up one level of abstraction to a "total solution", there's not much to say. A debate between reason and irrationality leads no where. At the heart of Thiel's position is a question: How do you fix a complex, broken and long-standing system? There are two alternatives: reform or revolution. Clinton represents reform at best and the status quo at worst. She has my vote because she's sane and sanity has become surprisingly rare. Trump represents revolution. Most revolutionaries overestimate the good a total change will bring, and underestimate the damage. All they can see is the bad of the current situation. But most revolutions fail miserably. The Arab Spring failed violently in Libya, Egypt and Syria. The Iranian revolution of 1979 rang in decades of theocracy. In China and Russia, Marxist-Leninism ultimately killed tens of millions of people. The French revolution led to a century of political instability and the collapse of the French empire. The revolution that overthrew the decadence of Weimar Germany was called Nazism. In the wake of a revolution, you find that the new humans at the top are no better than the old ones, and generally less experienced. Without well thought out structures (like the separation of powers in the US constitution), the new elite will fail and be corrupted. Anyone who's had to refactor a large, complex and crappy code base has longed to start from scratch. But countries cannot "start from scratch" without massive turmoil and bloodshed. Revolutions mean violence. I don't think we need a revolution, but if we did, it should at least go in the right direction. Trump is not the right direction. Another important thing to remember is: some political views do not count as dissent, and cannot be accorded the same privileges as other forms of speech: hate speech and white nationalism don't count as dissent. Sexual predation and misogyny don't count as dissent. They are ugly prejudices, and it's not useful to listen to or engage them in a "debate". They have to be tackled in some other way. In public fora, we should present alternatives to Trump supporters' views, but in private conversation, we should build relationships with his supporters based on non-political common ground. Years down the road, some of them will come round, and when they do, that human connection will be their road of return. One of my siblings was in a cult for about a decade. We just nodded, laid down some light rules about proselytizing and turned the conversation to baseball. For years. And then one day they left the cult and we never heard about it again. 3) Root cause. This is the most important level of engagement. How do we address the factors that have lead us to this point? There are a lot of factors, but I think we can boil is down to one word: bubbles. People are living in bubbles. Wealth creates bubbles of isolation (Trump himself is a great example, and so is SV). Poverty creates bubbles of isolation, where people are not exposed to new ideas, other cultures and different kinds of people. And the media creates bubbles. Some of the media's bubbles are great (innocent weirdos congregate and find their human home on the Internet), and some are really damaging, because, as a nation, Americans no longer live in a shared reality or agree upon facts. Fox News has never cared about facts, and the GOP has done a lot to drive its supporters away from mainstream media where fact-checking actually happens. The FCC eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and since then US media and their audiences have grown increasingly polarized.[7] Maybe that was a mistake. Different types of bubbles can be burst in different ways. Internet media bubbles could be addressed, at least partially, with algorithms to recommend other types of content, but we would have to accept a benevolent algorithm-maker trying to change our minds.[8] Media bubbles cause bubbles of ideology -- destructive, self-perpetuating memes like anti-semitism and white nationalism. Those are hard to burst. It takes a huge commitment on the part of the people who are hated to go out, encounter the haters in a neutral context and demonstrate your humanity. It can be done. Sometimes it leads to a minor victory, like a racist realizing "not all n are bad." Really hard work. Bubbles of poverty can be burst by investing more time and money in poor communities, getting people to work and exposing them to the other in non-threatening ways. Maybe we're talking dance troupes and exchange students -- I don't know. To get to the root, we have to go beyond the media to the interests that are financing the culture wars and climate denial.[9][10] I don't have ready-made solutions for bursting bubbles, or cutting off the funds that are creating the ideologies that threaten the US and the whole species, but that's where we need to focus. The real issue is the dark money and Citizens United. Beyond that is only capitalism itself, the system that allows a few individuals for reasons of merit or inheritance to lay enormous social claims on the rest of society through the unequal allocation of wealth. We're living in a strange time. Large historical forces are at work in America, which are beyond the powers of any one person to address. This election cycle has taught me a lot about humans and group behavior, more than I ever wanted to know, and it's given me a surprising sympathy for the Germans whose lives were eclipsed by Nazism in the 1930s. Not all of them wanted it, but all of them got it. A few resisted and died; some fled; many sank into indifference and getting-by; and some saw it as a career opportunity. Just a few more percentage points in favor of Trump and all of America gets him, his walls, his deportations and his groping paws, too. And then we'll all have choices to make. [0] https://twitter.com/dhh/status/787547255259758592 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/787547255259758592 [1] https://twitter.com/paultoo/status/786990416537149441 https://twitter.com/paultoo/status/786990416537149441 [2] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-hate-groups-neo-nazi-white-supremacist-racism http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-hat... [3] http://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12256510/republican-party-trump-avik-roy http://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12256510/republican-party-trump... [4] http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/03/17/defending-donald-trump-alex-jones-warns-of-an-a/209345 http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/03/17/defending-donald-tr... [5] https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2010/10/why-people-dont-change-their-minds-even-when-faced-facts https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2010/10/why-people-d... [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTJB8AkT1dk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTJB8AkT1dk [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine [8] https://www.wired.com/2016/09/googles-clever-plan-stop-aspiring-isis-recruits/ https://www.wired.com/2016/09/googles-clever-plan-stop-aspir... [9] http://www.pnas.org/content/113/1/92.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/113/1/92.abstract [10] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-... [11] https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0385535597 https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radic...

cromwellian 10y ago

Yeah, a libertarian who got rich on CIA investments and contracts. Isn't it amazing how everything else is crony capitalism and government needs to stop interfering in the market except to make oneself rich and protect ones own assets?