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> Peter Thiel, one of the ideological leaders in the Valley, wrote in 2009 on a blog affiliated with the Cato Institute that “since 1920, the vast increase in w

• dragonwriter 9y ago
  The quote given clearly requires one of three things be true: (1) Thiel opposes capitalism, (2) Thiel opposes democracy, (3) Thiel opposes women holding the franchise. The piece in question seems to choose #3, which is the most natural reading, but I think #2 is plausible as well. Thiel clearly supports capitalism, so it's not #1.
  • humanrebar 9y ago
    Or Thiel likes all three and sees that they can work against each other.
    • CalChris 9y ago
      As a self-described libertarian that would be impossible to square with Thiel's rather famous quote: I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.
      • benchaney 9y ago
        It may be true that Thiel doesn't believe one of the three things dragonwriter listed, however: 1. The quote being discussed doesn't require this. 2. If Peter Thiel doesn't like democracy (and therefore would like no one to vote) it would be misleading (although technically accurate) to describe that as Peter Thiel not wanting women/minorities to vote.
        • CalChris 9y ago
          If you want to interpret what Thiel says then you have to take into consideration everything that he says. So yeah, the quote being discussed does require this. That would be the case if you consider Thiel as some sort of libertarian intellectual. If he's just a whatIsaywheneverIsayitmeaningwhateverIwantittomeanwheneveritsuitsme-arian then I see your point.
          • benchaney 9y ago
            Way to ignore half of my post. It is completely reasonable to take context into account when doing this sort of interpretation, but it is important to be explicit about what context is included in the analysis. The article we are discussing is being criticized for being dishonest in this regard, which is why the distinction between "implied by this quote" and "implied by something else he said" is important.
            • CalChris 9y ago
              I apologize for ignoring the second half of your post. In addition to it being some form of rebuttal, it contained 5 negative clauses. Basically, I couldn't figure it out and thought best to leave it alone.
  • thedevil 9y ago
    Or (4) Two things that are good and just can conflict sometimes and cause challenges.
  • psyc 9y ago
    You are constructing normative statements out of Thiel's descriptive one.
    • dragonwriter 9y ago
      I'm pointing out that Thiel's own description makes certain combinations of normative statements untenable as they are contradictory.
  • barrkel 9y ago
    How did you get to normative judgements from a positive assertion? That is, how did you get from a description of what is, to inferring what the author thinks ought to be? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
    • dragonwriter 9y ago
      > How did you get to normative judgements from a positive assertion? The description of things a logically incompatible (“oxymoron”) means that support for one logically excludes support for the others. Thiel's description of capitalist democracy as oxymoronic in the presence of women voting excludes support for the combination. (Though his other statements outside of the one in question suggests democracy, not women's suffrage within it, is the piece he has come to oppose in light of perceiving the incompatibility.)
      • barrkel 9y ago
        You're mixing up "support" as a logic connective with "support" as an opinion. Those are two different words. A leg may support a table. That doesn't mean it has an opinion on the matter.
        • dragonwriter 9y ago
          > You're mixing up "support" as a logic connective with "support" as an opinion. No, I'm not. I'm using it strictly in the latter sense. (I am, of course, assuming that Thiel has a minimum degree of rationality, and thus does not hold positions he himself describes as logically incompatible.)
  • HNNoLikey 9y ago
    Thiel is somewhat of an Austro-anarchist, if not fully one like I am. As a matter of fact, he was to speak at PFS 2016 [http://propertyandfreedom.org/2016/01/pfs-2016-annual-meeting/ http://propertyandfreedom.org/2016/01/pfs-2016-annual-meetin...] but cancelled - likely due to PC pressure - but it would have been great to hear him speak. Anyway, this school of thought espouses that capitalism and democracy are inherently incompatible. Democracy is seen as a slightly longer but sure road towards communism (as Karl Marx himself said [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Marxism] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Marxism]). The logic here being that, if the criteria by which elected officials get into government is by promising the demos more and more government handouts, then the logical conclusion is that at some point, we'll have transitioned from democracy to communism. The Austro-anarchists' solution is therefore to nip it in the bud and ensure that society doesn't employ democracy from the onset.
    • ue_ 9y ago
      >Democracy is seen as a slightly longer but sure road towards communism Not really. I can't remember Marx, but Marxists after him have made the distinction between what they call 'bourgeois democracy' and proletarian democracy. Marx was careful not to say that democracy inevitably leads to Socialism, and in fact correctly notes that proletarian movements have been supressed in democracies, such that revolution would be the only possible way. >The logic here being that, if the criteria by which elected officials get into government is by promising the demos more and more government handouts, then the logical conclusion is that at some point, we'll have transitioned from democracy to communism. This line of thought is ridiculous. Communism isn't about "handouts", it's got nothing to do with "handouts". More "handouts" doesn't mean Communism. Which people are proposing that Communism is about handouts? I can't imagine that there are intellectuals so misinformed about the aims of Communism such that they think it merely comes about by giving a lot of money away. >The Austro-anarchists' solution is therefore to nip it in the bud and ensure that society doesn't employ democracy from the onset. Then the Autro-anarchist position is flawed for the reasons I have stated.
      • HNNoLikey 9y ago
        > they think it merely comes about by giving a lot of money away. Then it would behoove you to tell me what redistribution is all about (or for that matter what communists today like to call re-redistribution).
• humanrebar 9y ago
  Also: > Last week, Google fired a software engineer for writing a memo that questioned the company’s gender diversity policies and made statements about women’s biological suitability for technical jobs. This is a huge misrepresentation of the ideas of the memo. This level of journalism, both from the writer and from the editors, is disappointing.
  • vernie 9y ago
    How would you summarize the memo in one line?
    • abtinf 9y ago
      How about: Google's current programs are ineffective and discriminatory, so alternative programs and work culture should be considered to achieve higher diversity.
      • oddlyaromatic 9y ago
        That may summarize the goal of the memo, but it does not adequately summarize the content, which has a large focus on biological differences between the sexes being this Big Factor that is not yet "priced in" to diversity programs. In reality he was probably way, way off on the impact of biology, but he confirmation biased his way forward regardless, then peppered the memo with hedges to offset the backlash.
        • deleted 9y ago
          [deleted]
        • mjevans 9y ago
          I agree with abtinf about the best interpretation of ideas within the memo. It is a result that the author of that memo should have reached after counseling and seeing evidence supportting of /equality/ programs actually being about equal treatment (or at least fair, as in having multiple possible measurements and a consistent policy of utilizing the best scores to reach a determination.). I feel like a lot of animosity was allowed to fester among all parties due to a lack of intelligent, open, and respectful discourse about problems and perceived problems.
• confounded 9y ago
  > Reading the quote with a reasonable level of charity suggests Thiel would prefer to convince these voters of the appeal of limited-government policy, not revoke their right to vote. Where are you getting this from? He says nothing of the sort; simply that women and poor people have destroyed capitalist democracy, by attaining the right to vote. There are a great many on HN who rush to Theil's defense, who seem unfamiliar with his very public, very outspoken politics. He's also said that "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." His solution to the fact that democracies may disagree with him is to weaken and destroy democracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
  • gaurav_v 9y ago
    He clarified that he didn't want to revoke rights to vote explicitly as an addendum to the essay (see bottom): https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio... Seems like an open and shut case of bad journalism.
    • studentrob 9y ago
      > Seems like an open and shut case of bad journalism. Hmm.. Seems like an open and shut case of a conservative saying words that mean one thing, then saying more words that are directly contradictory. We've seen enough of this "subtlety" in 2017 to recognize it. He could, in the future, also claim that he only made that correction in order to be PC, and that he felt censored and shamed.
  • TimPC 9y ago
    To put the quote in context it was in an essay that addressed people leaving countries through seasteading. So I think it's pretty much in evidence his view is not to deny people the right to vote, but to allow departure from societies one radically disagrees with for new ones.
    • Analemma_ 9y ago
• pavlov 9y ago
  There's something callous in the tone of the quote that rubs people the wrong way. Thiel seems to mourn the extension of the franchise, and makes it sound like USA would be better off if this error of the past could somehow be fixed.
  • humanrebar 9y ago
    > There's something callous in the tone of the quote that rubs people the wrong way We have to leave room for "insensitive" tones if we are going to be truly inclusive. Having a uniform book of dog whistles and manners doesn't mesh with actual diversity. That being said, if someone approaches Thiel about the offense and implications and he doubles down, he's on his own.
    • pavlov 9y ago
      This is what he said in response to the controversy: "It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us." A rather non-committal answer to the question of whether women's right to vote was a positive development. To my ears, he is basically saying "Well, too late to do anything about it now, isn't it?"
      • humanrebar 9y ago
        Full text: """ It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better. Voting is not under siege in America, but many other rights are. In America, people are imprisoned for using even very mild drugs, tortured by our own government, and forced to bail out reckless financial companies. I believe that politics is way too intense. That’s why I’m a libertarian. Politics gets people angry, destroys relationships, and polarizes peoples’ vision: the world is us versus them; good people versus the other. Politics is about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent. That’s probably why, in the past, libertarians have made little progress in the political sphere. Thus, I advocate focusing energy elsewhere, onto peaceful projects that some consider utopian. """ ...in context it doesn't seem so bad to me. Though YMMV, I guess.
• gaurav_v 9y ago
  Not only that; in response controversy arising from the 2009 essay he explicitly stated that "It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us." See addendum to the essay at bottom: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio... Lazy editing by the NYT.
  • ucaetano 9y ago
    > Lazy editing by the NYT. This isn't an article by the NYT. It's an opinion piece by someone unrelated to the newspaper: Jonathan Taplin is the director emeritus of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Innovation Lab and the author of “Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy.”
    • masonic 9y ago
      ... which is why the comment said, "lazy editing". The NYT chose to publish this in full. They bear responsibility for what they choose to put on their pages.
      • ucaetano 9y ago
        > The NYT chose to publish this in full. They bear responsibility for what they choose to put on their pages. No. Newspapers don't "bear responsibility" for opinion sections or letters to the editor. They publish them because they find the opinions relevant, not because they condone or support the content. The NYT frequently published highly opposing opinions together.
        • usegolang 9y ago
          It feels pretty ironic that this article takes a jab at FB with the fake news comment and then NYT, which arguably should be held to a higher bar for pieces like this, gets a pass on fact checking.
• parenthephobia 9y ago
  "the extension of the franchise to women ... [has] rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron" Thiel either opposes capitalist democracy, or regrets the franchisement of women. (Edit: Or both.) Reading those words otherwise is, IMO, not charitable but delusional. --- Having said that, the impression I get is that Thiel opposes democracy, rather than specifically democracy for women. He probably regrets extending the franchise to women not because they are women but simply because he regrets extending the franchise at all.
  • ericd 9y ago
    It's possible to think that capitalist democracy is a good thing, but that expanding the vote had positives that outweighed the negative. People who spend a lot of time thinking, as Thiel clearly does, tend to have more nuanced views than the one you're ascribing to him. I guess believing that would make it harder for people to sort everyone onto teams, though.
• psyc 9y ago
  People either don't read, or can't read. They just hear sounds that rhyme with thoughts that make them angry, and then get angry.
  • adrianratnapala 9y ago
    I upvoted you, because this rings true. But you are unfailry stereotyping "people".
    • dom0 9y ago
      Is such a thing even possible?
  • cookiecaper 9y ago
    Yes, this is a very important thing to understand and internalize. People, in the abstract sense, will not read and do not care about what you wrote. "Refer to line ABC-123..." is thus a futile defense (in most contexts).
  • humanrebar 9y ago
    In a civilized discussion, this happens: -------------- Alice: I think A, B, and C. Bob: Did you say you think A, B, C, and D? Alice: No, I said A, B, and C, but now that I think of it, I misspoke about the C part. I think A, B, and C(2). I don't know where you got D. I don't think that. Bob: OK. C(2) makes more sense, and let's forget about D. Here's why you're wrong about B. --------------- Here's what seems to happen a lot these days. Alice: I think A, B, and C. Bob: I hate your thoughts. We're done here. If I were your boss, you'd be fired. --------------- People would be a lot less angry and a lot smarter if they actually dialogued more.
    • gnaritas 9y ago
      Most people don't want to dialogue more with people who don't share their values, they'd much rather find people who do share their values. We are tribal animals, the current dissent in this country is a symptom of our tribalism not scaling up to 300 million people. There are tribes in this nation who are not going to get along, ever; the country is too big. Diversity doesn't scale.
• g09980 9y ago
  An analogy would be someone writing a statement as follows: "Abolishment of slavery led to economic ruin in the Confederate states." -Author Bob And a not-so-well-meaning reader TLDR'ing it as: "Author Bob claims that abolishing slavery was a bad thing." / "Author Bob is a supporter of slavery."
  • scottmf 9y ago
    Not quite. It's more like: "since 1865, the huge decrease in black slaves—something notoriously tough for capitalists—has rendered the notion of a "productive economy" into an oxymoron". Followed by the non-denial: "It would be absurd to suggest black people will be re-enslaved".
• ucaetano 9y ago
  > Can the New York Times point... This isn't an article by the NYT. It's an opinion piece by someone unrelated to the newspaper: Jonathan Taplin is the director emeritus of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Innovation Lab and the author of “Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy.”
• yahna 9y ago
  > Think what you may about Peter Thiel, but the quote does not say or even suggest that "women should not even have the vote." Said by a rather notorious libertarian venture capitalist it comes off a pretty big criticism of women getting the vote.
• bww 9y ago
  More importantly: I would argue that holding up Peter Thiel as some kind of moral representative of the entire technology industry is pretty ridiculous. Has he been a prominent figure and thinker? Sure. I think that most would agree, however, that his political views and eccentricities are extreme, have been long satirized, and are not generally representative of people in technology.
• rayiner 9y ago
  Peoples' reaction to the Thiel quote drives me bonkers. If I complain that evangelical christians as a demographic make it tougher to achieve comprehensive abortion rights, does that mean I think we should disenfranchise them? Of course not. Women and minorities are tough for libertarians; it shouldn't be controversial to point that out. It's also not surprising why that's the case. It's hard to sell a world view predicated on the concern for protecting people from the government to demographics who have since the 1950s relied heavily on government for protection from other people.
  • tptacek 9y ago
    That's not at all a perfect analogy: * You're not saying evangelical Christians make your preferred form of government impossible. * You'd be arguing in pursuit of a narrow policy goal, unlike Thiel. * People choose to be evangelical Christians; they're in part defined by their opposition to abortion. Women don't choose to be born women. * When you say "evangelicals make reproductive rights more challenging", you're not directly alluding to a franchise those people won within living memory.
    • unityByFreedom 9y ago
      > When you say "evangelicals make reproductive rights more challenging", you're not directly alluding to a franchise those people won within living memory. Pretty sure us Americans feel pretty strongly about freedom from England :-). Pilgrims and Puritans formed the roots of increased religious freedom in America, which led to other freedoms, etc.
    • euroclydon 9y ago
      Yeah, a better analogy would be if someone were to remark that, "legalized interracial marriage makes it more challenging to keep the Scandinavian bloodline pure."
  • unityByFreedom 9y ago
    > If I complain that evangelical christians as a demographic make it tougher to achieve comprehensive abortion rights, does that mean I think we should disenfranchise them? No. But that's not a full parallel. Consider the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783, when American Christians were first recognized by their former rulers to have their own state. If, in 1798 during the Franco-American war, a prominent British person had written: "since 1783, negotiating alongside American Protestants - a group notoriously difficult for England - has severely limited our ability to colonize and trade across the globe" Then he too might find some critics at his doorstep. Probably some supporters as well, but England didn't have the strength for another war with America. However innocent, that comment wouldn't have been mainstream. Understandably so, in my opinion.