12 ms·
New Zealand Is ‘the Future,’ Peter Thiel Said in His Push for Citizenship
- nilved 10y agoThis guy is like the villain of a Silicon Valley TV show in real life.
- ericzawo 10y agoRelatedly, have you ever watched 'Silicon Valley?'
- rusk 10y agoI'd always presumed that's who it was based on.
- bbctol 10y agoIIRC they've basically admitted Peter Gregory's hatred of college and general zen weirdness is based on Thiel.
- greggarious 10y agoLikewise, Gavin's comments on persecution of billionaires were based on real billionaire comments: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10598265/Silicon-Valley-billionaire-compares-treatment-of-Americas-rich-to-Nazi-persecution-of-Jews.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...
- d3ckard 10y agoI know that HN comments are supposed to be informative and meaningful, but honestly "LOL" is all I can think of at the moment.
- wheelerwj 10y agothis.
- throwawayCH_NC 10y ago"mama said, don't shit where you sleep, Peter" "well mama, it's a good thing i can afford to buy a new bed in another country" what a reckless coward.
- humanrebar 10y agoWhy can't Thiel like New Zealand and support Trump? Isn't this a big ad hominem response to Thiel's politics? Obligatory (because I don't care to defend things that people like to assume): I don't like Trump and didn't vote for him partly because of the stuff that's in the news now.
- zzleeper 10y agoBecause by now it's well known that many billionaires are using NZ as their backup in case TSHTF. And that's way more likely than him suddely developing affection for a random country across the ocean.
- humanrebar 10y agoI get the point. It's clearly implied in the piece and in the fact that it's on the HN front page. My point is "it doesn't matter and I don't know why I should care". I'm more interested in rational (not fallacy-centered) responses to his thoughts.
- buildly 10y agoSince it happened in 2011 I assume he has had his eye on a contingency plan of that nature for a while now.
- celticninja 10y agoIs anyone saying he cannot? Although there was a lot of press recently about people like Thiel buying these remote places in case of some sort of global disaster. NZ is a nice place to have a pint or two and wait for the trouble to all blow over. So it may seem like pushing for Trump could increase the risk of global disaster, which Thiel has hedged against but many of us are not as fortunate to have a well stocked, remote bolt hole.
- throwawayCH_NC 10y agoHe doesn't 'like New Zealand'. Hell, I like NZ! He winds up at the dawn of the internet in an early monopoly (Paypal), leverages insider user-monitoring to sell dashboards to the Feds (Palantir), and after enabling the security monitoring services he claims to be opposed to, helps a raving despot take their command, decides he wants to cash out his $bn once shit gits real. the man is a wealthy coward and hypocrite, who has helped deeply hurt a nation of mostly decent people. he's scum.
- kweinber 10y agoTldr: New Zealand is corrupt and Peter Thiel bought citizenship without ever living there. There is no mention of his helping revive the Trump campaign and how you should think "Peter Thiel" and his investments every time an executive action oppresses someone during this administration...so let's not go there.
- tim333 10y agoThey gave him citizenship after he invested $7m and gave $1m to charity there. That's not really corrupt - in most countries you can move there through investing. Corrupt is when you give an envelope of cash to an official. NZ actually ranks joint #1 least corrupt country in the world with Denmark. USA is #18. http://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016 http://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_percepti...
- arcticbull 10y agoGenerally you stop at permanent residency (US EB-5, for instance) and can't really buy citizenship. Notable exception of course being Malta as a path to EU citizenship (pretty cheap, actually, some 650,000EUR [1] [1] http://csbgroup.com/relocation/citizenship/malta-individual-investor-programme-iip/ http://csbgroup.com/relocation/citizenship/malta-individual-...
- tomp 10y agoDid you also think "Bill Gates" whenever Obama droned and killed someone (he was one of his supporters/donors)?
- rusk 10y agoSo he's not actually going to be living in New Zealand ... I'd have to wonder, aside from the generous donations noted in the article what's in it for them? Will he be paying tax? Presumably he'll still have to pay tax wherever he's domiciled (California) but is there some rub here he (and NZ) could be taking advantage of?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- philipov 10y agoNew Zealand is the future, and Peter Thiel will make sure of that by giving us Trump. It all makes sense, now.
- rhexs 10y agoDisappointing the hackernews comments are turning into the exact same thing I've been avoiding at arstechnica, engadget, and gizmodo. A lot of rage, very little substance.
- meanduck 10y agoYou gotta shout otherwise you would sign the social contract. But seriously I think HN should reconsider no politics week.
- fighttf 10y agoIronically your comment supports your observations.
- chillingeffect 10y agoI hear you, yet I believe the substance is still there. The technical details are still very strong around here. My SO tries to read this site to understand me and is flummoxed by 98% of the content :) Part of the questions in a hacker/entrepreneur's life or at least expert developers, are concepts like, "how to interface with civic society." As "wizards," we have a lot of power, and using it wisely and responsibly is an important way to sustain our power and create the harmonious world we all want. In hacker form, we're seeing a number of approaches, such as aiding the ACLU (YC), isolating oneself (Thiel), try experiments (UBI). This isn't going to be the place with clear, obvious, simplistic answers. We're independent hackers and we are experimental and it helps us and the world to discuss results and tactics in gentleperson fashion. THAT SAID :) I acknowledge your plaint about how quickly many stir to rage. Emotions need to be leveraged carefully. Allowing (and inducing) emotional states to cloud unnecessarily can be highly counterproductive to progress. I see this on nearly all sides of the discussions. I hesitate to say circumstances have warranted it, because I agree we all need to keep our heads on tight and dig deep into the facts, listen to one another and find that common ground. In the W era, there was lots of talk about bipartisanship, crossing the aisles and also technocratic methods to achieve unity and comprehension of civic process. I know technocracy is not primary, but I would love to focus some attention toward that as a stepping stone for national harmony. Even those websites that turn your zip code into your representatives communication are a great step in the right direction. Let's keep it up.
- meanduck 10y agoNZ embracing what nations like USA forget what made them wealthy. I completely support this wealth/skill migration as the only cure for impeding full blown socialism.
- hd4 10y agoNot sure what the point is in getting angry about what billionaires do. It's hardly like they will change their decision-making based on what HN/Reddit et al. think about them. Focus on improving yourself.
- rusk 10y agoI sometimes find it therapeutic, cathartic even, to bitch and moan about things that annoy me. Especially amongst people who share my views, or challenge them. Granted, that's more the province of something like reddit, but I guess what we're seeing here is spill-over from more relevant on-topic discussion.
- Veen 10y agoThey might not change their decision-making, but since they're quite influential — including having influence on governments — it's useful to know what they're up to and whether their public pronouncements match their private behavior.
- fighttf 10y agoBut ar least I will be more informed.
- padseeker 10y agoWith the way things are going with Trump he might be right. Ironic that he's helping Trump.
- spatulon 10y agoIs having a place to live in NZ part of some 'prepper' survival plan? From The New Yorker's profile of sama: “My problem is that when my friends get drunk they talk about the ways the world will end. After a Dutch lab modified the H5N1 bird-flu virus, five years ago, making it super contagious, the chance of a lethal synthetic virus being released in the next twenty years became, well, nonzero.” ... If the pandemic does come, Altman’s backup plan is to fly with his friend Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist, to Thiel’s house in New Zealand. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-manifest-destiny http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-man...
- simonbyrne 10y agoApparently, yes (from a more recent New Yorker article): > New Zealand’s reputation for attracting doomsayers is so well known in the hedge-fund manager’s circle that he prefers to differentiate himself from earlier arrivals. He said, “This is no longer about a handful of freaks worried about the world ending.” He laughed, and added, “Unless I’m one of those freaks.” http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-f...
- saycheese 10y ago(Mobile friendly) From The New Yorker's profile of sama: “My problem is that when my friends get drunk they talk about the ways the world will end. After a Dutch lab modified the H5N1 bird-flu virus, five years ago, making it super contagious, the chance of a lethal synthetic virus being released in the next twenty years became, well, nonzero. [...] If the pandemic does come, Altman’s backup plan is to fly with his friend Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist, to Thiel’s house in New Zealand." SOURCE: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-manifest-destiny http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-man...
- DanBC 10y agoPlease don't use spaces to blockquote text. It's broken on mobile.
- arcticbull 10y agoMultiple citizenships are a hedge against local instability. Having one is putting all your eggs in one basket. If all you have is US citizenship and an lets say hypothetically an orange totalitarian takes over, you're kinda stuck. You've got no legal right to live anywhere else. Another citizenship(s) affords that to you. New Zealand is a good bet because they're (1) remote, (2) English speaking, (3) very well developed and (4) has an extremely well functioning government with among the lowest perception of corruption (5) and widely-accepted travel documents. Particularly as a notable or wealthy individual, another citizenship can make a lot of sense.
- orcdork 10y agoAnd people say techies are disconnected from reality. I mean, where did that come from amiright.
- arcticbull 10y agoI mean, feel free to explain why. It's more interesting to have a conversation.
- tsomctl 10y agoAccording to the article, he was granted citizenship there in 2011, long before Trump was serious about becoming president. There's enough fucked up shit going on right now; it delegitimizes all that stuff by saying he's using New Zealand to escape Trump.
- dgut 10y agoAnd the witch-hunt continues.
- c0nducktr 10y agoYeah, poor Peter Thiel. It's a real shame that people have opinions on his actions.
- verelo 10y agoNew Zealand is a beautiful place, but it's also rather boring and small, remote and inaccessible unless you own a car for local transit and can afford plenty of plane tickets for your larger travels. I would disagree and say that the future of the worlds environment probably looks like the opposite of New Zealand, but I'll hand it to him, the New Zealand economy does look a lot like the future of the USA in my opinion if Trump continues down his path hurting innovating industries by favouring traditional factory work: irrelevant. As a VC Thiel is used to people saying what it takes to get what they want. I am pretty sure he's just going through the motions, much like most people who come to him asking for money in exchange for an idea that will "change the world" are doing.
- michael_h 10y agoMountains, glaciers, hot springs, huge forests, beaches, wineries, rugby, meat pies. Yeah, it's a real snooze-fest.
- verelo 10y agoLike i said, beautiful, but if you like city life (large variety of places to eat, touring shows/bands to see, things other than bars being open past 6pm etc) it's certainly going to get real boring real quick.
- muninn_ 10y ago"We have to treat our country's citizenship like an asset" Meanwhile: "How dare the US have different immigration laws than us"
- corry 10y agoEven after reading the attached letter from Peter, it's not clear to me as to 'why New Zealand'. Sure... friendly people, environment, business friendly gov, familiar culture, opportunity to contribute to startup community etc. Makes sense. But other Commonwealth countries could check those boxes too -- especially Canada -- that one would expect to be far more convenient and accessible. Even the obvious not-spoken reason -- the isolation of New Zealand and its ability to act as a haven in case of global calamity -- could find analogues in Canada's vast wilderness for a man of his means. Actually, he might already have a landing strip and bunker somewhere next to a freshwater spring in the Canadian shield (Canada has 1/5th of the world's freshwater). That said, Canada is locked in orbit with the US; so perhaps part of his rationale is ability to escape the US sphere of influence if needed too. Canada is also less ethnically homogenous than NZ, which some people may think will matter in a doomsday scenario. New Zealand also has much higher population density... one could imagine that mix of density and isolation being important when trying to rebuild civilization.
- razorunreal 10y agoNZ is ethnically homogeneous? Maybe in the South Island. Wikipedia claims 69℅ European overall which doesn't sound that high to me.
- corry 10y agoGood point. Canada is <60% European descent - but still not as big of a gap as I thought. Canada's big cities tend to be very multicultural -- Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal -- which maybe skews my perception a bit.
- eternalban 10y agoCan't you just picture this guy getting pulled off his chopper by zombies as he tries to flee to New Zealand? :)
- kriro 10y agoSeems very consistent. Thinks US isn't great, gets backup citizenship, finds another/more direct way to make USA great again. Also consistent with his involvement in sea steading. Would make sense for him to renounce NZ now. I don't quite get why the snarky "make NZ great again" remark was needed in the article (isn't the NYT supposed to be a reliable news source?) however I like that it was reported because I didn't know about this. I think multi-citizenship is a strange concept but I'm all for competition among countries for citizens.
- throwaway54320 10y agoTo understand Thiel, I think you have to look at how he is a dark inversion of his philosophical mentor, Rene Girard. Girard's primary thesis is that human desires are imitative, but we refuse to acknowledge this through a repeated, romantic lie about how our desires for an "object" are authentic vs. being rooted in imitation of another. This dissonance leads to periodic eruptions of violence that are themselves too imitative and escalatory, and which are only resolved through redirecting the violence onto a scapegoat: "If two individuals desire the same thing, there will soon be a third, then a fourth. This process quickly snowballs. Since from the beginning desire is aroused by the other (and not by the object) the object is soon forgotten and the mimetic conflict transforms into a general antagonism. At this stage of the crisis the antagonists will no longer imitate each other's desires for an object, but each other's antagonism. They wanted to share the same object, but now they want to destroy the same enemy. So, a paroxysm of violence would tend to focus on an arbitrary victim and a unanimous antipathy would, mimetically, grow against him. The brutal elimination of the victim would reduce the appetite for violence that possessed everyone a moment before, and leaves the group suddenly appeased and calm. The victim lies before the group, appearing simultaneously as the origin of the crisis and as the one responsible for this miracle of renewed peace. He becomes sacred, that is to say the bearer of the prodigious power of defusing the crisis and bringing peace back." Girard's solution to this problem is a kind of atheistic Christianity. It's essentially incumbent on each person acknowledge the truth of these structures in human society, The innocence and subsequent false deification of scapegoats (relative to the origin of mimetic violence), and walk away from them by modeling themselves after the example of Jesus' disciples. What I think Thiel instead calculated using this philosophy is that scapegoats are the true origin of political and economic power in all forms. Since humans want to believe the romantic lie about the sincerity of their desires, they'll willingly accept false idols and their promise of transcendence through human sacrifice. Allying yourself with a political movement based on these principles is a path to wealth and power. By the way, this is Girard's definition of Satanism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Girard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Girard
- MK999 10y agoIn a WW3 scenario China might conquer Aus & NZ. Why not Patagonia?
- andy-x 10y agoAll billionaires are filthy scum and must be deported to wherever their other citizenship is and never allowed to return to US
- RawData 10y agoAnd why should I care about this?