8 ms·
That Peter Thiel is really good at picking winners and disruption.
by simple10 10y ago
That Peter Thiel is really good at picking winners and disruption.
- robg 10y agoAnd hopefully to the Supreme Court!
- android521 10y agolet's hope that Peter Thiel can use his influence to do some good and not just for himself.
- jedberg 10y agoWhy would he? He's a hardcore Libertarian. His core philosophy is "do good for myself and the world will be better". The only way he'll help anyone else is if their interests happened to be aligned with his. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the guy (barring recent endorsements) but you have to understand where his philosophical basis is.
- curioussavage 10y agoWhat you are describing is not libertarianism. Sounds like you are implying he follows ayn rands philosophies. Not the same thing
- jedberg 10y agoThat's why I use the capital L libertarian. The Ayn Randian type.
- jnbiche 10y agoAyn Rand explicitly disavowed libertarianism, both big "L" and small "l". Her political/moral philosophy was Objectivism [0]. The primary focus of libertarianism is the promotion of individual liberty and non-aggression, leaving the individual to become as big (or small) of a philanthropist as she/he wishes, and never being viewed as a lesser libertarian because of their altruism, or lack thereof (in fact, many libertarians I know are very generous people). Objectivism, on the other hand, specifically condemns altruism and philanthropy, and deems those who engage in altruism to be "bad" people. This is consistent with how Ayn Rand lived her life. I don't know whether your phrase describing Thiel, "do good for myself and the world will be better", is accurate or not as a description of his personal philosophy (it does make some sense he would follow Rand instead of libertarian philosophy, given his recent activities both political and entreprenerial). But I am quite sure that the phrase is characteristic of Objectivism and not libertarianism (l | L). Please don't confuse Ayn Rand with libertarianism. Many libertarians despise her writings, back then as in now (and she despised libertarians/Libertarians). 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jules 10y agoIs that true? In his speech the other day he was arguing for a very moderate kind of libertarianism.
- stillworks 10y agoThat is very interesting. There was a recent interview of Jeff Bezos where he was asked to comment about Peter Thiel. He said Peter Thiel is a Contrarian. He then said that Conventional Wisdom is generally right and Contrarians are generally wrong, but when Contrarians are right they are right in a massive massive way !
- cneumuel 10y agoThis reminds me of Nassim Taleb's barbell risk management strategy: Avoid the middle in favor of the extremes. For investments, it means a combination of very conservative plus some high risk investments to win big. He applies it to many other areas, though, including health and politics.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- internaut 10y agoHaving watched and listened to Thiel for several years now, I came up with a pet hypothesis I call 'The Wolfian World' that I feel describes what's going on more accurately than the newspapers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884413 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884413
- chridal 10y agoYour comment was a very interesting read. A shame that it didn't get any further discussion. I'll give The Book of the New Sun a go. Thanks for your insights.
- internaut 10y agoThanks. You won't regret it. It is a most extraordinary masterwork. That book changed my thinking in ways I find difficult to describe. It was as if the world suddenly developed richer textures. I don't know if he would agree, but I felt it was a very 'Thielian' book. A lot of his ideas and statements came into focus for me when I read it. Together with the recordings I mention it became quite an experience.
- ianai 10y agoIt's also linear extrapolation beyond everyone's individual abilities to react to the immmediate past. That at least is one thing our system enforces: the political cycle forces people to think about the presidency at least once every four years and the senate every two. A long term dip below progress is still possible insofar as the majority of the worlds population live nothing like the lucky minority.
- internaut 10y agoYou're saying that our intrinsic chronocentric thinking prevents us from seeing the danger of the have-nots abruptly encountering a Western lifestyle? That futureshock in large numbers could wind up causing disruption on a scale that would pull us all down?