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Peter Thiel Speaks at the National Press Club – Live Stream
- rmcfeeley 10y agoWatching now. Pretty surreal Will he end on a positive note or send countless liberal techies to the self-medication cabinet this afternoon??
- gragas 10y agoHopefully send countless liberal techies to the self-medication cabinet. The fact that anyone can call this man a bigot is beyond me.
- msbot 10y agoI can, and so can women. "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron." https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
- TenOhms 10y agoIsn't he saying that the welfare programs have effectively subverted democracy by locking certain people (and women especially) into a certain constituency group, which once locked, are extremely difficult to escape (and those people's vote are extremely easy to manipulate)?
- msbot 10y agoHe's also citing the inclusion of women's right to vote. To even question a demographic's right like that makes him incredibly suspect in my eyes.
- nanistheonlyist 10y agoIf you are not subject to the draft then those that are should not be subjected to your vote.
- Jtsummers 10y ago> If you are not subject to the draft then those that are should not be subjected to your vote. Makes sense. Only 18-25 year old, healthy men should be able to vote. Totally makes sense.
- remarkEon 10y ago"Service Guarantees Citizenship."
- tanderson92 10y agoEven unhealthy males must register with the selective service[1]. Furthermore, males who are now over the age of 25 must have been registered at one point (excepting those born prior to 1960). The point made by nanistheonlyist broadly holds. [1]: https://www.sss.gov/Registration-Info/Who-Registration https://www.sss.gov/Registration-Info/Who-Registration
- Jtsummers 10y agoEven so, they aren't truly subject to it for this purpose. And the idea that only those subject to the draft should be voting is absurd as it neglects the rest of the current military. Along with neglecting every issue that's effected by voting (well, by our representatives) that aren't military/war. Everyone in this country is a stakeholder in these elections.
- tanderson92 10y agoI would rephrase it to be "only those at risk of dying in a foreign military conflict" should, in a just world, vote on matters of international "engagement" (the euphemism pols like to use). It's not an irrational position as long as we have the draft. True all people in the country are stakeholders but not all are similarly exposed to the risks of war (the military is primarily poor and filled with minorities--but that's a separate issue). Fortunately women will soon be required to register with the selective service so this critique will be outdated.
- arcaster 10y agoCurrently in class, anyone been capturing the stream? I'd definitely be interested in an offline version.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- snerbles 10y agoYouTube normally keeps a recording of the stream available after it's finished.
- jonathanstrange 10y agoI cannot take anyone seriously who calls himself a libertarian. For Christ's sake, learn something about the various traditions of right- and left-wing libertarianism, study the basics of anarchism (e.g. Stirner), and read some Adam Smith. Libertarianism is either mislabeled right-wing liberalism, which has a long-standing tradition, or it turns out to be no more than a fairly inconsistent mix of classical liberal and anarchist ideas peppered with some generic right-wing gun-nuttery and diffuse anti-government sentiment. You know, in the end somebody has to pay for the military, police, firemen, ambulances, roads, drinking water, sanitation, food safety, consumer safety (like not getting electrocuted by your vacuum cleaner), schools, hospitals, ...
- grandalf 10y agoIn isolation this comment is not absurd or incorrect. But when you consider the contorted meaning of nearly every word describing political affiliation, describing one's self as a libertarian is very minor offense, and far less inaccurate than the typical use of "right" and "left" in modern American politics.
- nkrisc 10y agoMy personal interactions with a few self-labeled Libertarians tells me that they are fine paying for those services for themselves, but don't want to subsidize them for anyone else. Well, their vision of "Libertarianism" sure sounds good if they're rich. Nevermind the collective society that allowed them to profit in the first place. I suspect the label "Libertarian" is too widely used for many ideologies.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- xname2 10y agoLibertarianism is not anarchism, so I am not sure what you mean. Somebody needs to pay A, B, C, D, ..., it does not mean all the answers to the "somebody" is the government.
- jonathanstrange 10y ago
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- gragas 10y agoWell, there seems to be tremendous support behind what he is saying. The chat is exploding. My favorite takeaway so far: [Thiel on Trump] "The media always takes him literally, but never seriously. I think his supporters take him seriously, but never literally."
- BryantD 10y agoA snapshot of comments from the chat: "Hillary's only claim to fame is she is the only woman not to suck Bill's cock. " "god this interviewer. CUCKED" "FBI Stumbled onto Huma's INS Policy to keep her from being Vince Fostered... 53 dead around hillary makes the mob look like Pikers." "Liberals think Taxes are more important than Hillary Butchering People!!!! Really?! Wake up peeps" "Wikileaks will ultimately put the Clintons in prison and will hopefully allow President Trump to prosecute the entire Obama administration past and present!"
- forloop 10y agocherrypicked
- TheDrizzle43 10y agoWhat an inspirational group of people.
- gragas 10y agoLet me reiterate Thiel's quote, which I think perfectly describes this situation: "The media always takes him literally, but never seriously. I think his supporters take him seriously, but never literally." Most of Trump's HIGH ENERGY comes from him and his supporters saying over-exaggerated things. Everyone who supports him understands that these things are over the top, but they agree with the basic sentiment behind them. Most people who dislike Trump, however, take everything he and his supporters say literally. This is a mistake.
- radarsat1 10y agoThere are plenty of people who dislike the basic sentiment behind many things that Trump has said.
- programminggeek 10y agoHe seems like a reasonable guy and his points about how close minded the diversity movement in SV is are interesting.
- euroclydon 10y agoThat was a pretty effective comment Thiel just made: "I think the press never takes Trump seriously, but they do take him literally, whereas his supporters take him seriously, but not always literally."
- rmcfeeley 10y agorhetorical 360 slam dunk
- louprado 10y agoBut when DJT takes 3 days to evaluate whether the KKK should be denounced, his non-supporters took that very seriously. Meanwhile while most of his supporters took his eventual statement literally.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sofal 10y agoThat sentence was in The Atlantic in September. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-makes-his-case-in-pittsburgh/501335/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-ma...
- uola 10y agoSort of expected a better interview when I heard "The National Press Club". This is mostly "What do you think about x? I think this and that" read from notes.
- purple-dragon 10y agoUnfortunately, the National Press Club is now merely a venue. It can be booked for events like any hotel or conference center. Though the club itself still has its own programming, part of the value for an outside party is that it can borrow on the cachet of the name.
- cconroy 10y agoIt would be interesting to get a list of thoughtful people supporting Trump. So far I have: - Peter Thiel - Scott Adams - Nassim Taleb?? Who else? Most thoughtful people I follow pick against Trump and more or less believe he is a threat to the Republic. I tend to agree with them mainly because of his attitude toward the press (even though I agree they are biased against him) and his proclivity to violent rhetoric. Edited: formatting Edit: I also want to clarify the biasedness of media was based on Wikileaks coverage and the [0]social media blackout after the Comey's letter to congress. I acknowledge their coverage of him probably helped him. Edit: It is possible Taleb does not support DT, there is no direct evidence of this. I added '??' to him. See this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12838352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12838352 [0] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-29/social-media-blackout-fbi-emails-are-not-trending-twitter-facebook-buzzfeed-or-snapc http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-29/social-media-blacko...
- Analemma_ 10y agoScott Adams thinks he is a wizard whose voice has hypnotic mind-control powers, and that the Clinton Foundation personally bankrolls an army of trolls to harass him on Twitter. In other words, he's delusional. He is not in any sense of the term a "thoughtful person"
- adnzzzzZ 10y ago>Scott Adams thinks he is a wizard whose voice has hypnotic mind-control powers He thinks Trump is a good persuader. And he is. Trump's use of confirmation bias is very skillful and effective.
- Analemma_ 10y agoThat's probably true! But the "he" in my sentence refers to Scott Adams, not Trump. Scott thinks of himself as a brilliant persuader, a theory that is ill-supported by the evidence.
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- cylinder 10y agoReally appreciated how he espoused how Boomers' optimism borne out of an exceptionally easy and comfortable life has been dangerous for the country. I've long felt the same about American optimism, but have been happy to see that it's become much more mainstream to admit America needs a managed decline of its empire this year thanks to Trump and Sanders. Boomers have pushed the American culture of blind optimism into a reality distortion field which draws the country into various bubbles: stock market bubble, housing bubble, war bubble, etc. Also enjoyed his statement that America needs to be a "normal country again." I have been trying to convey this sentiment due to my understanding of other countries. Most Americans probably don't understand how abnormal the US and its government are in many ways. He says, a "normal country doesn't run a $500 billion trade deficit, intentionally run a broken government, five simultaneous wars."
- tzs 10y ago> Most Americans probably don't understand how abnormal the US and its government are in many ways. He says, a "normal country doesn't run a $500 billion trade deficit, intentionally run a broken government, five simultaneous wars." When you look at that trade deficit on a per capita basis, or as a percentage of GDP, it then does look pretty normal compared to other first world countries.
- vehementi 10y agoHe almost crushed his own credibility in his opening remarks by saying "Look, our leaders come from a generation of people of whom half are broke!" as if that means anything.
- angry-hacker 10y agoThiel is an interesting character but not the best speaker. I wonder how comes is she so successful despite looking not very convincing, neither dominative and confident person. When the (boring) interviewer asked about the Gawker sex tape, he was literally sweating and looking for water with his shaking hands. A bit disappointing talk, nothing too interesting. Basically, he says media takes Trump literally. Gawker's case has nothing to do with the first amendment and he talks about the case from a very personal perspective -- destroyed lives, mobs attacking people -- doesn't really answer from the law point of view. Other answers were kind of dull, it's difficult to understand his ideas. But I still feel like I would like to hear more. Maybe a better interviewer could open him up.
- cylinder 10y agoI think we are all tired of slick talkers and charismatics full of hot air.
- louprado 10y agoPT clarifies that the "Wall" DJT wants to build shouldn't be taken literally. It was just a metaphor (metaphor is my word not PT's) for a tougher immigration policy. Wow! Are there really people still capable of holding an idealized model of DJT in their head while dismissing or spinning anything that doesn't fit that model ? DJT was my childhood hero so I understand the desire to stay hopeful and avoid thinking. Never meet your heroes feels applicable here. Edit: typos
- tim333 10y agoI was kind of a fan of "Trump" after reading The Art of the Deal. It was only recently I found the actual Trump didn't write any of the book and the guy described was basically fictional.
- louprado 10y agoI don't even think he read it. There's a section in the book where he says that he shouldn't be given too much credit for the Wollman rink project, because the NYC government had regulatory requirements that didn't apply to his construction team. Only in a parallel universe would DJT give himself less credit.
- cm2012 10y agoHe said earlier that people are tried of being lied to by politicians. Meanwhile, only 30% of statements DJT makes are in any way true: http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/
- throwaway274739 10y agoThey really ought to be asking some tougher questions. At the end of the day, Trump is a man whose platform consists of removing the rights of large cross sections of the American public (Mexican-Americans, Muslims, women, etc.). Supporting someone like that makes you a supporter of state sanctioned violence against those people and I think every institution -- the media, law enforcement, universities, businesses, etc. -- have a responsibility to denounce this in the strongest possible terms. This is not simply a disagreement on tax policy, it's about the fundamental human rights of millions of Americans. To see a supporter of this sort of hate receiving softball media treatment or condoned by respected organizations such as YCombinator is disgusting.
- nolepointer 10y ago>Trump is a man whose platform consists of removing the rights of large cross sections of the American public (Mexican-Americans, Muslims, women, etc.) You cannot be serious.
- ConfuciusSay02 10y agoTrump wants to deport illegal immigrants, something that is actually following the law, and something that Obama has done by the hundreds of thousands (millions?). Trump wants to temporarily suspend immigration from Muslim countries that are near ISIS controlled territory. Suspending immigration from dangerous hotspots is something that has been done regularly by previous administrations. Furthermore, non American citizens don't actually have any "rights" under American law. Trump wants abortion laws to be decided by individual states. Women in each state will have their democratic voice about that issue at their state ballot box. You can quibble about how he says things perhaps, but to say that his platform consists of removing rights of large cross sections of the American public is just wrong and ignorant.
- misiti3780 10y agoHe speaks in a very similar manner as Mark Zuckerberg, that is the first time I noticed this.
- pulisse 10y agoIf you're a single-digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system. It costs too much. This is not an intellectually serious speech.
- clydethefrog 10y agoLink to the actual quote. http://www.tubechop.com/watch/8509031 http://www.tubechop.com/watch/8509031
- xname2 10y agoThe Clinton campaign's strategy on Wikileaks is repeating that the emails could be fabricated. However, it is technically almost impossible. The tech community has been mostly silent on this issue. For example, I did not see @paulg twitter on DKIM verification.
- postcarnival 10y agoIs this being censored from the homepage? I'm surprised I'm not seeing Peter Thiel's speech on the homepage of HN.. seems fishy
- skoopie 10y agoI noticed that too. I had to go back in my history to find the link.
- postcarnival 10y agoIf true that only shows further how extreme the anti-Trump censors are that want to tell us how we should think. That is exactly why Trump will win.
- davidw 10y agoActually, if you read the guidelines, politics is considered off topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html The resulting discussion here is all politics.
- postcarnival 10y agoI think it's pretty fair considering his role in the Tech community
- grzm 10y agoJust speculating, but it may have been caught by the flamewar detection software. I don't know how it works. Here's a couple of mentions of it being used in the past: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12792215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12792215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12729921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12729921
- hga 10y agoYes, anything about him is gone within 2-3 hours, I went so far as 5 pages past the homepage and all 6 items as I type this (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=peter&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=last24h&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=peter&sort=byPopularity&prefix...), including this one that got a lot of votes, but also one of the 5 or so votes one that showed up on the home page for a tiny bit, have been disappeared. Perhaps the mods will step in, assuming they aren't behind it; me, I wonder what'll happen to these people's minds if/when Trumps wins.... Nothing good, especially to those who's business includes needing to sell to ~half the country. ADDED: And now it's flagged; guess he won't be getting to give his side of his story to the HN crowd.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- whiddershins 10y agoWhy is this flagged?
- tim333 10y agoI just listened to Theil's argument for supporting Trump, roughly that there are problems in America - soaring health and education costs, stagnant incomes for many, excessive debt, financial bubbles, too many wars and denial of the above by politicians, which is fair enough. He then suggests Trump has the correct policy to deal with this by restricting free trade, reducing wars, avoiding financial bubbles and government denial and returning to the efficient government that built the highways and launched Apollo. The trouble I see with that is that Theil seems a bit over optimistic about Trumps ability to achieve that stuff. If you look at Trump's record he tends to leverage up and go bust which is not a good model for efficient governance and bubble avoidance. If you read Trump's Gettysburg speech it seems rather unlike Theil's picture of him https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-delivers-groundbreaking-contract-for-the-american-vote1 https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-...
- ConfuciusSay02 10y agoIf your measure of a candidate is how likely they are to be able to get things done, I doubt a candidate like Hillary - who would be likely facing federal investigations and impeachment proceedings on day one would be more likely to get things done than Trump.
- kafkaesq 10y agoPer HN's guidelines, there's no reason this post should be flagged. Anything (of genuine public interest) to do with YC's accidental poster boy -- Peter Thiel -- is definitely fair game as conversation material.
- alecco 10y ago> 'Diversity has come to mean complete agreement with the establishment or you are out' Way to prove him right. Now I'm going to see his whole speech.