8 ms·

> Peter Thiel is an unlikeable human for many reasons... Care to elaborate? I always thought he was just a startup investor, albeit a very successful one.

somedangedname 9y ago
In his own words: "Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
- Simon_says 9y ago
  This is a pretty run of the mill opinion in Libertarian circles. As a Libertarian, it's hard not to feel that way as you see decades of what the majority of people vote for and what the majority of people put up with in their elected officials. Unless your argument is that Libertarians, generally, are unlikable, in which case, you may have a point ...
  - somedangedname 9y ago
    People vote wrong so take their votes away?
    - Simon_says 9y ago
      I'm totally with you, but if you read the article, this wasn't Thiel's argument. His solution was to establish societies in new frontiers: Cyberspace, the Ocean, and Space.
- hoorayimhelping 9y ago
  I tend to agree with him. Look at what happens whenever we put things to a popular vote in this country. Even in places that re known as being very liberal, like California, half the population regularly votes against gay marriage and marijuana legalization. Either way, someone expressing a loss of belief in something makes them unlikable? You don't like Peter Thiel because he's become cynical about democracy?
  - honestoHeminway 9y ago
    Because the other half of the species is frankly in constant denial of human nature? This is how we kept the tribe working before the modern state. A instinct in hetero man- telling them to hate on homosexuals. A instinct in hetero woman to test for this behaviour and use it, by having a drug addicted hetero male with which to threaten homo-sexual men into forming a contract-upholding-support group. Thus religion was born. To declare this phobia synthetic is heresy.
  - mrkrabo 9y ago
    And what makes you think you are universally and undeniably right if you support homosexuality and marijuana?
    - islanderfun 9y ago
      Don't believe it has to do with being "universally and undeniably right" but rather freedom to have gay marriage and marijuana legalization. Nothing to be "correct" about.
      - mrkrabo 9y ago
        Where do we draw the line? If homosexuality, why not zoophilia? If marijuana, why not cocaine?
        untog 9y ago
        > If homosexuality, why not zoophilia? Because animals are not able to give consent, nor are they capable of the thinking required to do so. Suggesting that homosexuality and zoophilia are two points on the same line is a very tired and inaccurate point to try to make. > If marijuana, why not cocaine? Actually a fair question. There's an interesting line of thought in legalising all drugs to bring them out into the open.
  - somedangedname 9y ago
    I think that someone who thinks democracy cramps his style has no business advising the president.
- mmirate 9y ago
  Thiel is correct. Any centralized system wherein multiple cultures must fight for a majority with which to impose their culture on everyone else, does not respect the freedom of slightly under half its citizens. ("Red Tribe" and "Blue Tribe", as one may call the collection of traits held by the average conservative and average neoliberal, respectively, are effectively different cultures[1].) [1]: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything...
  - somedangedname 9y ago
    You can enact laws that respect and support multiple points of view. See: national service but with exemptions for reasons of faith, mixed public private medical systems etc. Also, I would say that you are using a shallow definition of culture.
    - mmirate 9y ago
      > mixed public private medical systems etc. As best I understand, having a single system with aspects of both extremes, has not brought out the advantages of either. We'd be better served by having a public system and a market that competes with it; except that nobody in good health would find the public system to be competitive, and that thus the public system would devolve into a public charity for the chronically ill/injured/etc. > national service but with exemptions That's all well and good, but exemptions become more difficult for a number of other things. For instance, rural residents (a.k.a. "Red Tribe") generally prefer to be taxed less and receive less subsidized services overall in return; whereas many urban residents wish for a sort of Northern-European "nanny state" which provides every service imaginable in exchange for having negligible post-tax net income. And here's another example which speaks more directly to geography. In rural areas there are (a) hostile and/or food-bearing wildlife, (b) large wooded areas devoid of humans (or, at least, demarcated with warnings that all humans within must wear high-visibility vests) and (c) an abundance of soft, bullet-absorbing ground. For this reason, rurals see firearms as a useful tool that can be handled safely enough to not cause injury to humans or damage to human property. (Unless, of course, one is an outlaw who intends to do so.) In urban areas, by contrast, there is scarcely any direction at all in which one can point a muzzle without "flagging" something valuable or someone; either directly, or on the ricochet from the hard materials that are common in urban areas, or even penetrating through a wooden wall/floor/ceiling of your apartment. It is no surprise, then, that many urbans see no purpose to civilian firearms ownership whatsoever; and would never see such a thing without entering a rural area; and would thus have no empathy or respect whatsoever for their rural neighbors who are so wary of firearms restrictions.
stagbeetle 9y ago
I'm not up-to-date on all things Thiel, but a rudimentary search on him doesn't bring up anything noteworthingly heinous. I believe it's just a classic case of mixing literal and connotative meanings of phrases. The poster does not mean Peter Thiel is inherently an unlikeable person, but that the poster himself believes Peter Thiel to be an unlikeable person, i.e "I don't like Peter Thiel." E-prime doesn't have this problem.
- KGIII 9y ago
  I have no idea about the veracity, but I have read a number of comments that state he likes to inject the blood of young people because he believes it will help prevent aging. Now, that sounds insane and unlikely. However, I've seen it mentioned a number of times. I guess the claim is that it is from an interview. I'm unwilling to invest more time to look into it. I don't actually care and I'm not sure why, if true, it would make him a bad person. I have to assume it'd be voluntary, if true. To be clear, it sounds rather unlikely. I share more to show what folks are saying, than to pass any judgement in his character.
  - sewer_bird 9y ago
    If you're not even going to source/verify some hearsay, why bring it up, especially in such an equivocating way?
    - KGIII 9y ago
      To answer their question, based on my observations of those who dislike the man. The veracity is immaterial and beyond my willingness to Google. I make no claims about the truth of their assertions, only that I have seen the accusations multiple times.
    - stagbeetle 9y ago
      It's better than no response at all. I was able to find two vanity fair pieces on the topic, if only because I had a better place to start: "Thiel blood boy"
confounded 9y ago
To say the very least, he is an outspoken feudalist, is opposed to multiculturalism, and is generally considered to be on the far-right, except for issues which affect him personally (immigration, homosexuality). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel
- nailer 9y ago
  The page you mention says he's a libertarian and I see nothing there that would indicate Thiel is on the far right - i.e. he does not support any kind of political violence. I don't know what feudalism is post-middle ages, but being opposed to multiculturalism is fairly common and wouldn't make anyone more or less likeable to most people than being in favour of multiculturalism.
  - 1337biz 9y ago
    > but being opposed to multiculturalism is fairly common If only Europe would learn...
  - arethuza 9y ago
    I wish we could agree on a standard set of dimensions for political positions as a simple "left" and "right" don't really work... In this case, even though I'm pretty far left by the standards of HN, I would have to point out that the "far right" hardly has a monopoly on political violence.
    - nailer 9y ago
      Of course - I'm not at all asserting the right has a monopoly on political violence. There are far left groups that support political violence: ETA, the Provisional IRA, Hamas, Hezbollah, Antifa, and various socialist dictators (Chavez, Castro, Mao, Stalin) would come to mind.
  - albedoa 9y ago
    > The page you mention says he's a libertarian and I see nothing there that would indicate Thiel is on the far right I see you are London-based, so it should be clarified that we are talking about American libertarianism. Your comment is difficult to parse in that context, as libertarians embrace far-right views here. The angle from which they arrive on those views is what defines them.
rtx 9y ago
He is a Trump supporter.
- yellowapple 9y ago
  Oh no, he has political views and preferences with which I disagree! That must mean that he's an evil, terrible person! Burn him at the stake!
  - bllguo 9y ago
    What is wrong with you? He was asked to provide a reason why he thought Thiel was unlikable and he answered. You proceed to blatantly and outrageously twist his words. Nobody said he was evil or terrible. Don't pretend it was implied, either.
    - yellowapple 9y ago
      "He was asked to provide a reason why he thought Thiel was unlikable and he answered." And I responded to the ridiculousness of such reasoning. "Nobody said he was evil or terrible. Don't pretend it was implied, either." Don't pretend it wasn't. It very clearly was in the article. In fact, the very apparent and specific implication is that he is so evil and terrible that by mere association with him, Hulk Hogan is also evil and terrible and deserves to have his privacy violated by the likes of Gawker, and that Hulk Hogan is therefore to blame for the alleged "chilling effect" on the R. Kelly reporting because he dared to stand up for himself. The idea that such irredeemability seems to come from Thiel being associated with Trump makes this whole thing doubly ridiculous. Put differently: "What is wrong with you?" Absolutely nothing is wrong with me. Absolutely everything is wrong with disliking someone because of an association with someone else who is associated with someone else who is subjectively believed by a portion of the country to be a bad person.
dang 9y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14888931 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14888931 and marked it off-topic.

somedangedname 9y ago

In his own words: "Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...

Simon_says 9y ago
This is a pretty run of the mill opinion in Libertarian circles. As a Libertarian, it's hard not to feel that way as you see decades of what the majority of people vote for and what the majority of people put up with in their elected officials. Unless your argument is that Libertarians, generally, are unlikable, in which case, you may have a point ...
- somedangedname 9y ago
  People vote wrong so take their votes away?
  - Simon_says 9y ago
    I'm totally with you, but if you read the article, this wasn't Thiel's argument. His solution was to establish societies in new frontiers: Cyberspace, the Ocean, and Space.
hoorayimhelping 9y ago
I tend to agree with him. Look at what happens whenever we put things to a popular vote in this country. Even in places that re known as being very liberal, like California, half the population regularly votes against gay marriage and marijuana legalization. Either way, someone expressing a loss of belief in something makes them unlikable? You don't like Peter Thiel because he's become cynical about democracy?
- honestoHeminway 9y ago
  Because the other half of the species is frankly in constant denial of human nature? This is how we kept the tribe working before the modern state. A instinct in hetero man- telling them to hate on homosexuals. A instinct in hetero woman to test for this behaviour and use it, by having a drug addicted hetero male with which to threaten homo-sexual men into forming a contract-upholding-support group. Thus religion was born. To declare this phobia synthetic is heresy.
- mrkrabo 9y ago
  And what makes you think you are universally and undeniably right if you support homosexuality and marijuana?
  - islanderfun 9y ago
    Don't believe it has to do with being "universally and undeniably right" but rather freedom to have gay marriage and marijuana legalization. Nothing to be "correct" about.
    - mrkrabo 9y ago
      Where do we draw the line? If homosexuality, why not zoophilia? If marijuana, why not cocaine?
      - untog 9y ago
        > If homosexuality, why not zoophilia? Because animals are not able to give consent, nor are they capable of the thinking required to do so. Suggesting that homosexuality and zoophilia are two points on the same line is a very tired and inaccurate point to try to make. > If marijuana, why not cocaine? Actually a fair question. There's an interesting line of thought in legalising all drugs to bring them out into the open.
- somedangedname 9y ago
  I think that someone who thinks democracy cramps his style has no business advising the president.
mmirate 9y ago
Thiel is correct. Any centralized system wherein multiple cultures must fight for a majority with which to impose their culture on everyone else, does not respect the freedom of slightly under half its citizens. ("Red Tribe" and "Blue Tribe", as one may call the collection of traits held by the average conservative and average neoliberal, respectively, are effectively different cultures[1].) [1]: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything...
- somedangedname 9y ago
  You can enact laws that respect and support multiple points of view. See: national service but with exemptions for reasons of faith, mixed public private medical systems etc. Also, I would say that you are using a shallow definition of culture.
  - mmirate 9y ago
    > mixed public private medical systems etc. As best I understand, having a single system with aspects of both extremes, has not brought out the advantages of either. We'd be better served by having a public system and a market that competes with it; except that nobody in good health would find the public system to be competitive, and that thus the public system would devolve into a public charity for the chronically ill/injured/etc. > national service but with exemptions That's all well and good, but exemptions become more difficult for a number of other things. For instance, rural residents (a.k.a. "Red Tribe") generally prefer to be taxed less and receive less subsidized services overall in return; whereas many urban residents wish for a sort of Northern-European "nanny state" which provides every service imaginable in exchange for having negligible post-tax net income. And here's another example which speaks more directly to geography. In rural areas there are (a) hostile and/or food-bearing wildlife, (b) large wooded areas devoid of humans (or, at least, demarcated with warnings that all humans within must wear high-visibility vests) and (c) an abundance of soft, bullet-absorbing ground. For this reason, rurals see firearms as a useful tool that can be handled safely enough to not cause injury to humans or damage to human property. (Unless, of course, one is an outlaw who intends to do so.) In urban areas, by contrast, there is scarcely any direction at all in which one can point a muzzle without "flagging" something valuable or someone; either directly, or on the ricochet from the hard materials that are common in urban areas, or even penetrating through a wooden wall/floor/ceiling of your apartment. It is no surprise, then, that many urbans see no purpose to civilian firearms ownership whatsoever; and would never see such a thing without entering a rural area; and would thus have no empathy or respect whatsoever for their rural neighbors who are so wary of firearms restrictions.

stagbeetle 9y ago

I'm not up-to-date on all things Thiel, but a rudimentary search on him doesn't bring up anything noteworthingly heinous. I believe it's just a classic case of mixing literal and connotative meanings of phrases. The poster does not mean Peter Thiel is inherently an unlikeable person, but that the poster himself believes Peter Thiel to be an unlikeable person, i.e "I don't like Peter Thiel." E-prime doesn't have this problem.

KGIII 9y ago
I have no idea about the veracity, but I have read a number of comments that state he likes to inject the blood of young people because he believes it will help prevent aging. Now, that sounds insane and unlikely. However, I've seen it mentioned a number of times. I guess the claim is that it is from an interview. I'm unwilling to invest more time to look into it. I don't actually care and I'm not sure why, if true, it would make him a bad person. I have to assume it'd be voluntary, if true. To be clear, it sounds rather unlikely. I share more to show what folks are saying, than to pass any judgement in his character.
- sewer_bird 9y ago
  If you're not even going to source/verify some hearsay, why bring it up, especially in such an equivocating way?
  - KGIII 9y ago
    To answer their question, based on my observations of those who dislike the man. The veracity is immaterial and beyond my willingness to Google. I make no claims about the truth of their assertions, only that I have seen the accusations multiple times.
  - stagbeetle 9y ago
    It's better than no response at all. I was able to find two vanity fair pieces on the topic, if only because I had a better place to start: "Thiel blood boy"

confounded 9y ago

To say the very least, he is an outspoken feudalist, is opposed to multiculturalism, and is generally considered to be on the far-right, except for issues which affect him personally (immigration, homosexuality). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel

nailer 9y ago
The page you mention says he's a libertarian and I see nothing there that would indicate Thiel is on the far right - i.e. he does not support any kind of political violence. I don't know what feudalism is post-middle ages, but being opposed to multiculturalism is fairly common and wouldn't make anyone more or less likeable to most people than being in favour of multiculturalism.
- 1337biz 9y ago
  > but being opposed to multiculturalism is fairly common If only Europe would learn...
- arethuza 9y ago
  I wish we could agree on a standard set of dimensions for political positions as a simple "left" and "right" don't really work... In this case, even though I'm pretty far left by the standards of HN, I would have to point out that the "far right" hardly has a monopoly on political violence.
  - nailer 9y ago
    Of course - I'm not at all asserting the right has a monopoly on political violence. There are far left groups that support political violence: ETA, the Provisional IRA, Hamas, Hezbollah, Antifa, and various socialist dictators (Chavez, Castro, Mao, Stalin) would come to mind.
- albedoa 9y ago
  > The page you mention says he's a libertarian and I see nothing there that would indicate Thiel is on the far right I see you are London-based, so it should be clarified that we are talking about American libertarianism. Your comment is difficult to parse in that context, as libertarians embrace far-right views here. The angle from which they arrive on those views is what defines them.

rtx 9y ago

He is a Trump supporter.

yellowapple 9y ago
Oh no, he has political views and preferences with which I disagree! That must mean that he's an evil, terrible person! Burn him at the stake!
- bllguo 9y ago
  What is wrong with you? He was asked to provide a reason why he thought Thiel was unlikable and he answered. You proceed to blatantly and outrageously twist his words. Nobody said he was evil or terrible. Don't pretend it was implied, either.
  - yellowapple 9y ago
    "He was asked to provide a reason why he thought Thiel was unlikable and he answered." And I responded to the ridiculousness of such reasoning. "Nobody said he was evil or terrible. Don't pretend it was implied, either." Don't pretend it wasn't. It very clearly was in the article. In fact, the very apparent and specific implication is that he is so evil and terrible that by mere association with him, Hulk Hogan is also evil and terrible and deserves to have his privacy violated by the likes of Gawker, and that Hulk Hogan is therefore to blame for the alleged "chilling effect" on the R. Kelly reporting because he dared to stand up for himself. The idea that such irredeemability seems to come from Thiel being associated with Trump makes this whole thing doubly ridiculous. Put differently: "What is wrong with you?" Absolutely nothing is wrong with me. Absolutely everything is wrong with disliking someone because of an association with someone else who is associated with someone else who is subjectively believed by a portion of the country to be a bad person.

dang 9y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14888931 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14888931 and marked it off-topic.