7 ms·

> The chairman and co-founder of Palantir is Peter Thiel — the same man who more recently funded the lawsuit that destroyed Gawker, a media outlet that had ange

by roh0sun 10y ago

> The chairman and co-founder of Palantir is Peter Thiel — the same man who more recently funded the lawsuit that destroyed Gawker, a media outlet that had angered him, and who served as the final speaker at the Republican National Convention. His firm continues to work closely with the U.S. intelligence community.

pmoriarty 10y ago
And who recently made headlines by donating $1.25M in support of Donald Trump: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12716825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12716825
- tzakrajs 10y ago
  Wow, gross.
  - SixSigma 10y ago
    There are people in this world that have different opinions to yours. He his opposing a party that co-ordinates violet protests at political rallies as well as many, many other crimes.
- totalZero 10y ago
  How dare he support a political candidate!
  - tzakrajs 10y ago
    To be clear, I think supporting political candidates is a fine thing for anyone to do. I am not disagreeing with Thiel's choice to support a candidate, but rather his choice to support an ignorant, totalitarian bigot under any circumstances.
    - throwaway7312 10y ago
      Better the candidate agitating for nuclear war with Russia, right? [1][2][3] We might all turn to glass, but at least we'd still have our safe spaces. [1] http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/26/clintons-syria-strategy-would-require-war-with-russia-congress-hears/ http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/26/clintons-syria-strategy-wo... [2] http://www.inquisitr.com/3598001/russian-trump-hillary-clinton-will-start-world-war-3-be-the-last-u-s-president-ever/ http://www.inquisitr.com/3598001/russian-trump-hillary-clint... [3] http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/07/the-kremlin-really-believes-that-hillary-clinton-will-start-a-war-with-russia-donald-trump-vladimir-putin/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/07/the-kremlin-really-belie...
      - tzakrajs 10y ago
        We are post nuclear war. Cyber is the new nuclear. This nuclear saber rattling is a way for leaders to show their mettle to people in a way that they understand well.
        pmoriarty 10y ago
        I strongly disagree. There are still thousands of nuclear weapons pointing from the US to Russia and vice-versa, along with many others in hot spots like India and Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. A lot of the weapons and warning systems in Russia are antiquated, and could result in false alarms. False alarms have drawn the world close to nuclear war before. Now that either Hillary or Trump will get elected, the US is very likely to get in to another war, and it's quite possible that it will turn nuclear if one of the other nuclear powers get involved in a big way. The nuclear threat is just not considered much any more, except in the case of North Korea, because of the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, but this is a false sense of security. The proverbial Doomsday Clock might not be quite as close to midnight as it was at the hight of the Cold War, but it's still way too close for comfort.
        tzakrajs 10y ago
        If those countries had the gall to launch a nuke, they would have to be willing to live with the consequences when their compromised system levels their missile silo or other installation. Edit: That is to say, the NSA might have probably compromised this ICBM and it will detonate before moving an inch.
krige 10y ago
Destroying Gawker is a real community service.
- dsr_ 10y ago
  The price of freedom is dissent. When you shut down the voices of people you disagree with, you reduce freedom.
  - krige 10y ago
    Gawker's case has absolutely nothing to do with freedom of speech, as much as they were styling themselves, instead it has a lot to do with ruining people's lives, breaking the law and paying the consequences of such behaviour.
    - aetherson 10y ago
      Just to be clear, "ruining people's lives" by reporting true things, at least in the case of Thiel and Hogan. I mean, reasonable people can disagree about the bounds of journalism. It is not crazy to say that outing someone or publishing a sex tape is scummy. But it is not true that this had "nothing to do with freedom of speech," and your rhetoric seems awfully overblown. Is Thiel's life ruined? Hogan's?
      - JanezStupar 10y ago
        I would just like to note, that the gist of the problem with Hogan is that Gawker has been ordered to remove the said tape by a court and they refused to comply. That is the real reason why they got obliterated in the end.
        aetherson 10y ago
        That may be true. But my parent poster said that it was because they ruined people's lives. I don't think that refusing to comply with a court order, however dumb that may have been, was ruining anyone's life.
rmc 10y ago
Thiel is also a YC partner.
- diyorgasms 10y ago
  In a thread yesterday, sama qualified his status as a "part-time partner" but nonetheless he is involved with YC.
SixSigma 10y ago
That is what we call "spin". Gawker destroyed itself.
AvenueIngres 10y ago
>media outlet >Gawker Never mind. This isn't the issue. But this is amusing to see Gawker - a garbage tabloid with a pseudo-progressive agenda and highly questionable ethics - be referred using a very neutral term ("media outlet"). And to see any attempts at neutrality vanish next sentence when it comes to describing Peter Thiel. As if Thiel was not famous for Paypal, Facebook, Palantir or 0->1 but rather for being the guy who "destroyed" Gawker (an innocent media outlet that is.). Or I guess for being the guy who helped Hulk Hogan get justice, but that's if you are not a rancid journalist. A few thoughts anyway: 1/ Interestingly, it is a few months after Thiel publicly endorsed DT that Palantir faces an obviously bogus lawsuit from a US agency that is directly supervised by the Executive branch. 2/ The article fails to mention that if Thiel was "angered at Gawker", it is because he was outed as a homosexual without his consent by those very people pretending to be progressives. 3/ Thiel funded the Hogan lawsuit. The tone the article takes make it seem like he fabricated evidence or used his power to take away the jobs of those honest and hard-working investigative journalists. That is not the case. He helped someone (Hulk Hogan) get reparations for the harm Gawker and their greed had caused him, ruining part of his life. 4/ There is a trend here. An ever increasing amount of vicious attacks towards Thiel since he started to create some harsh cognitive dissonance between media/liberal narratives ("Trump supporters are ignorant idiots, rednecks who don't know any better") and reality ("There is a broad spectrum of people who support Trump, each for different reasons. You can be a V legend, a successful tech entrepreneur and Stanford-educated lawyer and think Trump is the best choice all things considered").

by roh0sun 10y ago

pmoriarty 10y ago

And who recently made headlines by donating $1.25M in support of Donald Trump: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12716825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12716825

tzakrajs 10y ago
Wow, gross.
- SixSigma 10y ago
  There are people in this world that have different opinions to yours. He his opposing a party that co-ordinates violet protests at political rallies as well as many, many other crimes.
totalZero 10y ago
How dare he support a political candidate!
- tzakrajs 10y ago
  To be clear, I think supporting political candidates is a fine thing for anyone to do. I am not disagreeing with Thiel's choice to support a candidate, but rather his choice to support an ignorant, totalitarian bigot under any circumstances.
  - throwaway7312 10y ago
    Better the candidate agitating for nuclear war with Russia, right? [1][2][3] We might all turn to glass, but at least we'd still have our safe spaces. [1] http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/26/clintons-syria-strategy-would-require-war-with-russia-congress-hears/ http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/26/clintons-syria-strategy-wo... [2] http://www.inquisitr.com/3598001/russian-trump-hillary-clinton-will-start-world-war-3-be-the-last-u-s-president-ever/ http://www.inquisitr.com/3598001/russian-trump-hillary-clint... [3] http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/07/the-kremlin-really-believes-that-hillary-clinton-will-start-a-war-with-russia-donald-trump-vladimir-putin/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/07/the-kremlin-really-belie...
    - tzakrajs 10y ago
      We are post nuclear war. Cyber is the new nuclear. This nuclear saber rattling is a way for leaders to show their mettle to people in a way that they understand well.
      - pmoriarty 10y ago
        I strongly disagree. There are still thousands of nuclear weapons pointing from the US to Russia and vice-versa, along with many others in hot spots like India and Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. A lot of the weapons and warning systems in Russia are antiquated, and could result in false alarms. False alarms have drawn the world close to nuclear war before. Now that either Hillary or Trump will get elected, the US is very likely to get in to another war, and it's quite possible that it will turn nuclear if one of the other nuclear powers get involved in a big way. The nuclear threat is just not considered much any more, except in the case of North Korea, because of the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, but this is a false sense of security. The proverbial Doomsday Clock might not be quite as close to midnight as it was at the hight of the Cold War, but it's still way too close for comfort.
        tzakrajs 10y ago
        If those countries had the gall to launch a nuke, they would have to be willing to live with the consequences when their compromised system levels their missile silo or other installation. Edit: That is to say, the NSA might have probably compromised this ICBM and it will detonate before moving an inch.

krige 10y ago

Destroying Gawker is a real community service.

dsr_ 10y ago
The price of freedom is dissent. When you shut down the voices of people you disagree with, you reduce freedom.
- krige 10y ago
  Gawker's case has absolutely nothing to do with freedom of speech, as much as they were styling themselves, instead it has a lot to do with ruining people's lives, breaking the law and paying the consequences of such behaviour.
  - aetherson 10y ago
    Just to be clear, "ruining people's lives" by reporting true things, at least in the case of Thiel and Hogan. I mean, reasonable people can disagree about the bounds of journalism. It is not crazy to say that outing someone or publishing a sex tape is scummy. But it is not true that this had "nothing to do with freedom of speech," and your rhetoric seems awfully overblown. Is Thiel's life ruined? Hogan's?
    - JanezStupar 10y ago
      I would just like to note, that the gist of the problem with Hogan is that Gawker has been ordered to remove the said tape by a court and they refused to comply. That is the real reason why they got obliterated in the end.
      - aetherson 10y ago
        That may be true. But my parent poster said that it was because they ruined people's lives. I don't think that refusing to comply with a court order, however dumb that may have been, was ruining anyone's life.

rmc 10y ago

Thiel is also a YC partner.

diyorgasms 10y ago
In a thread yesterday, sama qualified his status as a "part-time partner" but nonetheless he is involved with YC.

SixSigma 10y ago

That is what we call "spin". Gawker destroyed itself.

AvenueIngres 10y ago

>media outlet >Gawker Never mind. This isn't the issue. But this is amusing to see Gawker - a garbage tabloid with a pseudo-progressive agenda and highly questionable ethics - be referred using a very neutral term ("media outlet"). And to see any attempts at neutrality vanish next sentence when it comes to describing Peter Thiel. As if Thiel was not famous for Paypal, Facebook, Palantir or 0->1 but rather for being the guy who "destroyed" Gawker (an innocent media outlet that is.). Or I guess for being the guy who helped Hulk Hogan get justice, but that's if you are not a rancid journalist. A few thoughts anyway: 1/ Interestingly, it is a few months after Thiel publicly endorsed DT that Palantir faces an obviously bogus lawsuit from a US agency that is directly supervised by the Executive branch. 2/ The article fails to mention that if Thiel was "angered at Gawker", it is because he was outed as a homosexual without his consent by those very people pretending to be progressives. 3/ Thiel funded the Hogan lawsuit. The tone the article takes make it seem like he fabricated evidence or used his power to take away the jobs of those honest and hard-working investigative journalists. That is not the case. He helped someone (Hulk Hogan) get reparations for the harm Gawker and their greed had caused him, ruining part of his life. 4/ There is a trend here. An ever increasing amount of vicious attacks towards Thiel since he started to create some harsh cognitive dissonance between media/liberal narratives ("Trump supporters are ignorant idiots, rednecks who don't know any better") and reality ("There is a broad spectrum of people who support Trump, each for different reasons. You can be a V legend, a successful tech entrepreneur and Stanford-educated lawyer and think Trump is the best choice all things considered").