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While this headline is factual, this is like saying "Man With Pre-Existing Health Conditions Donated to the Obama Campaign, and Now We Have Obamacare". People

While this headline is factual, this is like saying "Man With Pre-Existing Health Conditions Donated to the Obama Campaign, and Now We Have Obamacare". People shop for candidates that will serve their interests and then try to help get them elected. That is how our system of government works, and there is nothing wrong with that. The article strives to imply that Thiel paid this guy off to bring the action, but provides no factual basis for such a conclusion. He apparently sought out a candidate that shared his point of view on Google, and donated to him. It's as simple as that. This article really is nothing more than drivel intended to further impune the reputation of a man hated by liberals for his support of Donald Trump. It's no coincidence that it appears in Bloomberg, which happens to be owned by one of the most liberal people on planet earth. I can't stand political propaganda masquerading as legitimate news - on the left or right - but that seems to be all we are exposed to these days.

wavefunction 9y ago
I disagree with your notion that some hypothetical person with health issues donating $100,000 to the Obama campaign is anywhere in the same moral and ethical situation being discussed here. In fact it sounds like quite an empty equivalency.
- naturalgradient 9y ago
  Do you have an argument other than that it feels wrong to you? Some people feel deeply about net neutrality and the state of society.
  - 0xfffafaCrash 9y ago
    Consider two scenarios: You contribute $X to a political figure because you want to draw there attention to an issue because... A) you think society stands to benefit from making certain changes the political figure can enact B) you think you personally stand to not only get back your $X but personally fatten your wallet significantly in other ways as a result of changes the political figure can enact Is the distinction between cases where A applies and B doesn't apply vs. cases where B does apply (and A may or may not actually apply) with respect to ethics actually hard to grasp? In A, the $X is a personal sacrifice made for what you think is the greater good. In B, the $X is an investment for which you think you could have a high personal ROI for regardless of whether it actually makes things in general better or worse. Only B stands to create corruptive influences.
    - mantas 9y ago
      Both A and B would clearly apply to sick person donating for Obama to implement Obamacare. I'm pretty sure Thiel donated because A applies to him. The question is wether B applies to him though.
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    One difference is the chronology of the donations with respect to the candidate's actions. Candidate Obama didn't campaign on covering pre-existing conditions so a donation to his candidacy had no bearing on someone who has pre-existing conditions and wishes to make donations based on that. Thanks for offering a straw man that it's just about how I feel though. And Peter Thiel promotes Donald Trump whose FFC appointee Pai is doing his best to destroy net neutrality, and Pai has direct control over whether that occurs whereas this action by the Missouri AG is not in favor of net-neutrality per se. You've got some nerve presenting weak and inaccurate straw man arguments and whining about "my feelings."
ravingraven 9y ago
>While this headline is factual, this is like saying "Man With Pre-Existing Health Conditions Donated to the Obama Campaign, and Now We Have Obamacare". And what you are saying is like saying "a pebble fell into the ocean and a boulder fell into the ocean and it's the same because they both produced waves". Donations from the 1% are many orders of magnitude bigger than donations from ordinary folks mainly because ordinary folks live paycheck to paycheck and do not have the time or resources to donate. The leverage a big corporations have over politicians is enormous. IMHO they should have zero leverage (no vote, no influence).
- downandout 9y ago
  I suppose I should have put the amount in my headline. Let's say someone with the same amount to donate - $300K in this case - donated to Obama, because he wanted to support a candidate that would introduce legislation that would allow him to get health insurance despite several pre-existing conditions. Would you view that as wrong? You may, but it's certainly not illegal, and it's no different than what happened here. Again, people shop for and donate to candidates that will serve their interests. If you want that to be illegal, write your representatives.
  - ravingraven 9y ago
    >You may, but it's certainly not illegal, and it's no different than what happened here. No one is arguing that it is illegal (not even the article). It is a bad system.
    - downandout 9y ago
      >No one is arguing that it is illegal (not even the article) Yes and no. The article is trying to imply that he paid off a politician to carry out his vendetta against Google, which is illegal. They don't come out and say it directly, because they know he'd sue them into oblivion. But that is what they are implying. They're saying "there's smoke here...must be a fire somewhere!"
smhost 9y ago
> That is how our system of government works, and there is nothing wrong with that. The system you described naturally consolidates power, and most of society finds it acceptable only if it coexists with a mechanism to redistribute some of that power to the underprivileged class. So there are some things wrong with it. > a man hated by liberals for his support of Donald Trump Liberals hate him for his conservative views, not just for his support of Trump. As a PoC, it's hard not to feel disgust toward a powerful elite who says shit like: "...when you start looking for racism everywhere, and you start finding racism everywhere, it's only a very small step to finding racists everywhere. Now, there's nothing wrong if there are really racists out there, but I'm going to suggest to you that there really aren't." Textbook conservative gaslighting to downplay the prevalence of an issue that they find to be inconvenient.
- natecavanaugh 9y ago
  > Textbook conservative gaslighting to downplay the prevalence of an issue that they find to be inconvenient. I think depending on your experiences, it may come off as gaslighting, but as a conservative (who loathes Trump and a lot of what Thiel champions), I can tell you that even the word racist is a heavy handed social weapon that has sometimes been used wrongly, or, and this is what triggers conservative anger, is when it's applied only to white people. So it comes off as intellectually dishonest in these types of discussions. You may be thinking "oh Lord, cry me a river", but if everyone would cop to and own up for their own failings and work on that, things might ease a bit with regard to the tension of these discussions. Also, you can't have diversity of experience when it's convenient, and uniformity of experience at the same time. What I mean is, if all or most PoC have experienced racism, why is it not ok to then label all PoC with the negative labels and experiences? I've known many privileged PoC who demonstrate, if not full blown racism, then above average hostility and prejudice to not only other races, but even subgroups in their own ethnicity. And I have known many white people who come from an underprivileged background who suffer from many of the same structural inequalities in the system because of their background and who they associate with. I would agree with him that there really aren't many racists in the world in general, if we are defining racist as a person who consciously believes one race is superior to another. But if we define it as people who have subconscious prejudices that influence their thinking of other cultures, ethnicities, races, etc., Then I would say that they are everywhere, including you and I. But going with the latter definition is tricky, because humans are complex in that prejudices are overridden as often as they influence a decision. For instance, my former doctor was a somewhat older Asian lady, and she has a gigantic prejudice towards Russians and would say things like "Never adopt from Russia, the babies parents have so many drinking problems. The baby will have too many problems". However, having had her for many years, I can say that if a Russian, baby or not were to go to her for help, she would provide the same level of care she would give anyone else. Her prejudices may influence her initial thinking, but these sorts of things, if people are honest with themselves, are quickly overridden. Again, I'm not saying there aren't racists and that there aren't institutional issues that stem from it, I'm saying that it's frustrating that it's often ignored when PoC exhibit the same behavior, and that it happens when the environment is setup to favor PoC and the white person is the one at the disadvantage. So all that to say, I don't think it's inconvenient for conservatives or whites to have the discussion, it's just very often overly emotional on both sides and incredibly frustrating at times.
mrpopo 9y ago
> That is how our system of government works, and there is nothing wrong with that. For most of the world population, wealthy people buying off politicians to serve their interests is seen as unethical, and it is flat illegal in many countries.
- adventured 9y ago
  There is no country in the developed world where politicians aren't constantly bribed, pandered to, influenced via wealth & power from the private sector, and so on. There are no exceptions. Routine scandals - only the things that get caught - over the last three or four decades, from Canada to France to Western Europe to Australia to South Korea to China to Japan prove this point dramatically.
  - Jyaif 9y ago
    "Routine scandals" Well that's the thing isn't? Some billionaire influencing politicians is just business as usual in the US, while in some other developing countries it (rightfully so IMO) triggers scandals.
  - rockinghigh 9y ago
    The distinction is whether the bribery is legal or not. The US, unlike the countries you listed, has created legal means to bribe government officials.
CPLX 9y ago
If you think a Republican politician and billionaire financier is one of the most liberal people on earth you have a truly profound misunderstanding of what that word means.
- downandout 9y ago
  He was a Republican 17 years ago when it was politically convenient, then he renounced his party membership. He was a big Hillary supporter in the last election. He's also too liberal even for mainstream Democrats today, which is why he was considering a presidential run as an independent (and ultimately didn't, because he would have simply split the Democratic vote and taken exactly 0 votes from Trump). You should examine some of his positions on things, I think you'd find that you have a "profound misunderstanding" of his political views if you believe he's a Republican.
  - throttledagain 9y ago
    Thiel?
briandear 9y ago
Agreed: Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna gave $20 million to boost Clinton and other Democratic campaigns. Reid Hoffman gave 40,000 to Democrats in 2016. Sheryl Sandberg of contributed over $200,000 to Democratic electoral campaigns in 2016. Marc Benioff has previously put more than $100,000 toward Democratic election funds. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has spent more than $10,000 to support the Democratic ticket in 2016. Elon Musk has also contributed to Democratic campaign funds — which was vital as much of his business depends on government contracting, subsidy and tax credits. John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers had donated more than $600,000 to Clinton-related super PACs, and Brook Byers of the same firm has donated more than $100,000 to Democrat campaign funds. So WHY IS THIS A STORY? Because apparently Peter Thiel prefers to support causes he prefers which aren’t necessarily the causes that Bloomberg et al support. Peter was acting perfectly legally. We can debate the merits of the system, but Thiel didn’t do anything particularly noteworthy here.
- gadders 9y ago
  And Sam Altan as well: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-sam-altman-20170712-story.html http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-sam-altman-2017071...
- Jyaif 9y ago
  When you are responsible for a majority of the donation of an entity, you pretty much own that entity, i.e. that entity will do whatever you please. None of the donators you mentioned own the entities they donated to. Thiel owns that attorney.
  - danblick 9y ago
    > Thiel owns that attorney. Maybe, but that sounds like a pretty big logical leap.
briholt 9y ago
Theil is becoming the liberal media's George Soros - the enigmatic billionaire pulling the strings of his evil conservative conspiracy.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  Well, Soros does, in actual reality, fund and support the promotion of democracy and this has made him enemies amongst those who don't like that kind of thing. Theil and some of his buddies are on record as thinking that democracy is holding their libertarian dreams back, that it's incompatible with capitalism. And that generates pushback from those that prefer democracy. So, they do seem very neat opposites, but no need to assume it's all based on fairytales.
  - briholt 9y ago
    This is a highly politicized and subjective use of the word "democracy." It would be more forthright to just say, "I like Soros's politics."
    - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
      Are you suggesting Soros doesn't promote democracy, or that Theil hasn't bemoaned democracy and suggested its incompatible with capitalism. Or both? I mean, just to avoid doubt, I do like democracy so to the degree that someone enables democracy then I do like their politics.
      - InitialLastName 9y ago
        I think it would be possible for two people to reasonably disagree over whether any given move "enables democracy" though. I don't have a good internalized list of the positions that Soros' critics take issue with, but looking at [0], I could see my way to arguing that lots of the issues either do or do not enable democracy, based on different initial assumptions. [0] http://www.conservapedia.com/George_Soros#Socialist_Agenda_For_America http://www.conservapedia.com/George_Soros#Socialist_Agenda_F...

wavefunction 9y ago

I disagree with your notion that some hypothetical person with health issues donating $100,000 to the Obama campaign is anywhere in the same moral and ethical situation being discussed here. In fact it sounds like quite an empty equivalency.

naturalgradient 9y ago
Do you have an argument other than that it feels wrong to you? Some people feel deeply about net neutrality and the state of society.
- 0xfffafaCrash 9y ago
  Consider two scenarios: You contribute $X to a political figure because you want to draw there attention to an issue because... A) you think society stands to benefit from making certain changes the political figure can enact B) you think you personally stand to not only get back your $X but personally fatten your wallet significantly in other ways as a result of changes the political figure can enact Is the distinction between cases where A applies and B doesn't apply vs. cases where B does apply (and A may or may not actually apply) with respect to ethics actually hard to grasp? In A, the $X is a personal sacrifice made for what you think is the greater good. In B, the $X is an investment for which you think you could have a high personal ROI for regardless of whether it actually makes things in general better or worse. Only B stands to create corruptive influences.
  - mantas 9y ago
    Both A and B would clearly apply to sick person donating for Obama to implement Obamacare. I'm pretty sure Thiel donated because A applies to him. The question is wether B applies to him though.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  One difference is the chronology of the donations with respect to the candidate's actions. Candidate Obama didn't campaign on covering pre-existing conditions so a donation to his candidacy had no bearing on someone who has pre-existing conditions and wishes to make donations based on that. Thanks for offering a straw man that it's just about how I feel though. And Peter Thiel promotes Donald Trump whose FFC appointee Pai is doing his best to destroy net neutrality, and Pai has direct control over whether that occurs whereas this action by the Missouri AG is not in favor of net-neutrality per se. You've got some nerve presenting weak and inaccurate straw man arguments and whining about "my feelings."

ravingraven 9y ago

>While this headline is factual, this is like saying "Man With Pre-Existing Health Conditions Donated to the Obama Campaign, and Now We Have Obamacare". And what you are saying is like saying "a pebble fell into the ocean and a boulder fell into the ocean and it's the same because they both produced waves". Donations from the 1% are many orders of magnitude bigger than donations from ordinary folks mainly because ordinary folks live paycheck to paycheck and do not have the time or resources to donate. The leverage a big corporations have over politicians is enormous. IMHO they should have zero leverage (no vote, no influence).

downandout 9y ago
I suppose I should have put the amount in my headline. Let's say someone with the same amount to donate - $300K in this case - donated to Obama, because he wanted to support a candidate that would introduce legislation that would allow him to get health insurance despite several pre-existing conditions. Would you view that as wrong? You may, but it's certainly not illegal, and it's no different than what happened here. Again, people shop for and donate to candidates that will serve their interests. If you want that to be illegal, write your representatives.
- ravingraven 9y ago
  >You may, but it's certainly not illegal, and it's no different than what happened here. No one is arguing that it is illegal (not even the article). It is a bad system.
  - downandout 9y ago
    >No one is arguing that it is illegal (not even the article) Yes and no. The article is trying to imply that he paid off a politician to carry out his vendetta against Google, which is illegal. They don't come out and say it directly, because they know he'd sue them into oblivion. But that is what they are implying. They're saying "there's smoke here...must be a fire somewhere!"

smhost 9y ago

> That is how our system of government works, and there is nothing wrong with that. The system you described naturally consolidates power, and most of society finds it acceptable only if it coexists with a mechanism to redistribute some of that power to the underprivileged class. So there are some things wrong with it. > a man hated by liberals for his support of Donald Trump Liberals hate him for his conservative views, not just for his support of Trump. As a PoC, it's hard not to feel disgust toward a powerful elite who says shit like: "...when you start looking for racism everywhere, and you start finding racism everywhere, it's only a very small step to finding racists everywhere. Now, there's nothing wrong if there are really racists out there, but I'm going to suggest to you that there really aren't." Textbook conservative gaslighting to downplay the prevalence of an issue that they find to be inconvenient.

natecavanaugh 9y ago
> Textbook conservative gaslighting to downplay the prevalence of an issue that they find to be inconvenient. I think depending on your experiences, it may come off as gaslighting, but as a conservative (who loathes Trump and a lot of what Thiel champions), I can tell you that even the word racist is a heavy handed social weapon that has sometimes been used wrongly, or, and this is what triggers conservative anger, is when it's applied only to white people. So it comes off as intellectually dishonest in these types of discussions. You may be thinking "oh Lord, cry me a river", but if everyone would cop to and own up for their own failings and work on that, things might ease a bit with regard to the tension of these discussions. Also, you can't have diversity of experience when it's convenient, and uniformity of experience at the same time. What I mean is, if all or most PoC have experienced racism, why is it not ok to then label all PoC with the negative labels and experiences? I've known many privileged PoC who demonstrate, if not full blown racism, then above average hostility and prejudice to not only other races, but even subgroups in their own ethnicity. And I have known many white people who come from an underprivileged background who suffer from many of the same structural inequalities in the system because of their background and who they associate with. I would agree with him that there really aren't many racists in the world in general, if we are defining racist as a person who consciously believes one race is superior to another. But if we define it as people who have subconscious prejudices that influence their thinking of other cultures, ethnicities, races, etc., Then I would say that they are everywhere, including you and I. But going with the latter definition is tricky, because humans are complex in that prejudices are overridden as often as they influence a decision. For instance, my former doctor was a somewhat older Asian lady, and she has a gigantic prejudice towards Russians and would say things like "Never adopt from Russia, the babies parents have so many drinking problems. The baby will have too many problems". However, having had her for many years, I can say that if a Russian, baby or not were to go to her for help, she would provide the same level of care she would give anyone else. Her prejudices may influence her initial thinking, but these sorts of things, if people are honest with themselves, are quickly overridden. Again, I'm not saying there aren't racists and that there aren't institutional issues that stem from it, I'm saying that it's frustrating that it's often ignored when PoC exhibit the same behavior, and that it happens when the environment is setup to favor PoC and the white person is the one at the disadvantage. So all that to say, I don't think it's inconvenient for conservatives or whites to have the discussion, it's just very often overly emotional on both sides and incredibly frustrating at times.

mrpopo 9y ago

> That is how our system of government works, and there is nothing wrong with that. For most of the world population, wealthy people buying off politicians to serve their interests is seen as unethical, and it is flat illegal in many countries.

adventured 9y ago
There is no country in the developed world where politicians aren't constantly bribed, pandered to, influenced via wealth & power from the private sector, and so on. There are no exceptions. Routine scandals - only the things that get caught - over the last three or four decades, from Canada to France to Western Europe to Australia to South Korea to China to Japan prove this point dramatically.
- Jyaif 9y ago
  "Routine scandals" Well that's the thing isn't? Some billionaire influencing politicians is just business as usual in the US, while in some other developing countries it (rightfully so IMO) triggers scandals.
- rockinghigh 9y ago
  The distinction is whether the bribery is legal or not. The US, unlike the countries you listed, has created legal means to bribe government officials.

CPLX 9y ago

If you think a Republican politician and billionaire financier is one of the most liberal people on earth you have a truly profound misunderstanding of what that word means.

downandout 9y ago
He was a Republican 17 years ago when it was politically convenient, then he renounced his party membership. He was a big Hillary supporter in the last election. He's also too liberal even for mainstream Democrats today, which is why he was considering a presidential run as an independent (and ultimately didn't, because he would have simply split the Democratic vote and taken exactly 0 votes from Trump). You should examine some of his positions on things, I think you'd find that you have a "profound misunderstanding" of his political views if you believe he's a Republican.
- throttledagain 9y ago
  Thiel?

briandear 9y ago

Agreed: Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna gave $20 million to boost Clinton and other Democratic campaigns. Reid Hoffman gave 40,000 to Democrats in 2016. Sheryl Sandberg of contributed over $200,000 to Democratic electoral campaigns in 2016. Marc Benioff has previously put more than $100,000 toward Democratic election funds. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has spent more than $10,000 to support the Democratic ticket in 2016. Elon Musk has also contributed to Democratic campaign funds — which was vital as much of his business depends on government contracting, subsidy and tax credits. John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers had donated more than $600,000 to Clinton-related super PACs, and Brook Byers of the same firm has donated more than $100,000 to Democrat campaign funds. So WHY IS THIS A STORY? Because apparently Peter Thiel prefers to support causes he prefers which aren’t necessarily the causes that Bloomberg et al support. Peter was acting perfectly legally. We can debate the merits of the system, but Thiel didn’t do anything particularly noteworthy here.

gadders 9y ago
And Sam Altan as well: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-sam-altman-20170712-story.html http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-sam-altman-2017071...
Jyaif 9y ago
When you are responsible for a majority of the donation of an entity, you pretty much own that entity, i.e. that entity will do whatever you please. None of the donators you mentioned own the entities they donated to. Thiel owns that attorney.
- danblick 9y ago
  > Thiel owns that attorney. Maybe, but that sounds like a pretty big logical leap.

briholt 9y ago

Theil is becoming the liberal media's George Soros - the enigmatic billionaire pulling the strings of his evil conservative conspiracy.

ZeroGravitas 9y ago
Well, Soros does, in actual reality, fund and support the promotion of democracy and this has made him enemies amongst those who don't like that kind of thing. Theil and some of his buddies are on record as thinking that democracy is holding their libertarian dreams back, that it's incompatible with capitalism. And that generates pushback from those that prefer democracy. So, they do seem very neat opposites, but no need to assume it's all based on fairytales.
- briholt 9y ago
  This is a highly politicized and subjective use of the word "democracy." It would be more forthright to just say, "I like Soros's politics."
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    Are you suggesting Soros doesn't promote democracy, or that Theil hasn't bemoaned democracy and suggested its incompatible with capitalism. Or both? I mean, just to avoid doubt, I do like democracy so to the degree that someone enables democracy then I do like their politics.
    - InitialLastName 9y ago
      I think it would be possible for two people to reasonably disagree over whether any given move "enables democracy" though. I don't have a good internalized list of the positions that Soros' critics take issue with, but looking at [0], I could see my way to arguing that lots of the issues either do or do not enable democracy, based on different initial assumptions. [0] http://www.conservapedia.com/George_Soros#Socialist_Agenda_For_America http://www.conservapedia.com/George_Soros#Socialist_Agenda_F...