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I am still really puzzled over exactly why Peter Thiel so so hated. I believe the level of hatred is completely unwarranted. From my understanding, it boils dow

I am still really puzzled over exactly why Peter Thiel so so hated. I believe the level of hatred is completely unwarranted. From my understanding, it boils down to this: - He is remotely associated with Trump - He helped take down Gawker - ....something something something...but he backed Trump! For the Gawker part: Gawker outed him without his permission. Outing a gay man is something the tabloids used to do in the darkest time period of the United States. Finding someone was gay and making that known publicly was a tool used by very, very unpleasant people to destroy careers and lives for years. Given how Liberal the tech industry is, it is genuinely puzzling that people would rise to the defense of "Freedom of the Press" to use someone's sexual identity to try to discredit or embarrass them and destroy their career. This is not freedom of the press, its bullying. If a media outlet did something to you personally and you had a few million dollars to spare to shut them down, you would do it too. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. So Peter Thiel helped shut down an abusive tabloid that outs gay men against their will and regresses the tech sector back to the 1970's and 80's. That doesn't seem sufficient to warrant the hatred. Then he was associated with Trump. He dared so say things like: "Our middle class has been gutted by globalization and we are being eaten alive by China." Bernie Sanders ran on this exact platform. Almost word-for-word, Bernie Sander's political platform economically had many things in common with what Thiel was promoting. So that leaves one final option: The reason that people hate Thiel is because he made enemies in the Liberal press, they smeared him relentlessly and people internalized this without doing their own independent thinking or research. I don't like that Y Combinator was expected to "Apologize" for not firing someone for holding political beliefs that align them with 42% of the United States population. I feel the tech industry is now a worse, less free place when demonization of this type has become so endemic.

danans 9y ago
> - He is remotely associated with Trump I don't think his association with Trump deserves him anything beyond disapproval from someone who also disapproves of Trump, definitely not hatred. And I've almost never seen any hate-filled comments directed towards him on HN that weren't downvoted. But to suggest that he is only "remotely" associated with Trump seems like a blatant misrepresentation of his activities during and after the election.
rtx 9y ago
Being part of a group is not enough you have to proclaim it.
tensor 9y ago
I personally don't like him because he's hostile towards education.
- samsonradu 9y ago
  I've watched more than a dozen talks from him and the education topic was one of the most interesting points. Care to elaborate what you mean by hostile?
  - tensor 9y ago
    He's of the opinion that university is a waste of time and has gone so far as paying people to drop out. This isn't for people who are going into trades and might strictly not need a university education, but for people who he thinks should go on to found technical, medical, and engineering startups. I'm of the opinion that university is good for everyone, even people who don't strictly need it for their jobs. Democracy only works if you have an educated public that values critical thinking.
    - samsonradu 9y ago
      > He's of the opinion that university is a waste of time What I understood was more like it's a waste of money, considering the outrageous price you pay for it and it's ROI. Of course university is good for everyone, but if it comes along with a huge debt? He blamed the education system for bubbling up the prices and not providing enough value, to the point alternatives should be considered. I really liked his point that people should stop believing university is all you need to be successful in life and blindly throw money at them because they have no better idea.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Democracy only works if you have an educated public that values critical thinking. Thiel has openly said that democracy has become incompatible with his notion of freedom (and seems to prefer the latter given the conflict), so its not hard to see why he might not support something essential to the function of democracy.
majormajor 9y ago
I have some concerns about his fellowship thing looking like an inviting-but-ultimately-a-trap attempt to use 18 year olds to advance his own political agenda, but wouldn't say that's hateable, as theirs definitely a more positive way to look at it. I just think the implementation is not really set up for success for the individuals compared to the opportunity cost. I could see people with an even harsher take on his various super-individualistic projects, though.
- Jhsto 9y ago
  > I just think the implementation is not really set up for success for the individuals compared to the opportunity cost. Care to elaborate?
- hobofan 9y ago
  The fellowship is one of the few things I like about him. I was in exactly the position the fellowship was designed for where I had to decide between continuing to study or further pursuing my startup. IIRC correctly the age restrictions were lower back then, and I didn't apply because I was just slightly too old, which in retrospect was a stupid reason not to apply. I ended up pursuing the startup anyway (which ended up failing), and am now in a very good position experience- and job-wise, where I probably would have been in 5-10 years otherwise (_if_ we assume that I would have been able to endure/pass university). Given what I've seen/heard from alumni I (or friends of me) have met, they largely seem to be doing very well. Giving someone a 3-5 year headstart can be a significant boost. The only way I see the fellowship having bigger opportunity cost than university is if you subscribe to the school of thought of making "Harvard connections", which can turn out to be more advantageous.
jedberg 9y ago
Theil didn't just hurt a bully. He took it a step further. For one, he financed someone else's lawsuit, because his own was unwinnable (they did in fact print the truth, that he is gay). More importantly, he hurt free speech through the chilling effect of his suit. What he basically did was say, "don't ever print anything negative about a billionaire because they can take down your entire business". So now if a billionaire really does do something newsworthy and negative, places like the New York Times might think twice about publishing that story, for fear of the cost of defending a billionaire's lawsuit. That's why people dislike him (other than his Trump support, although to be fair I haven't heard anything about him supporting Trump anymore).
- sov 9y ago
  The sad take-away from Hogan v Gawker isn't that a millionaire can spend money on a whim to exert justice where he so desires, it's that you need that level of money to seek justice in the first place.
  - samsonradu 9y ago
    This! I honestly can't understand how one can blame Thiel for killing free speech. He basically evened the chances in front of justice. If there's anyone to blame for killing free speech it's the legal system who decided against Gawker.
- putlake 9y ago
  He funded someone else's lawsuit, yes. But it's not as if Thiel bribed the judge and jury. The lawsuit won on its own legal merits. Gawker did something they had no right to do, which the law recognized.
- ader5ty 9y ago
  Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.
- briandear 9y ago
  EFF funds other people’s lawsuits too. Isn’t that the exact same thing you are complaining about?
bbctol 9y ago
I mean I hate him because I read Zero to One and noticed his thoughts on monopoly are insane, but sure, you can assume people aren't doing independent thinking and research while in turn not doing independent thinking and research.
- xupybd 9y ago
  Does that warrant hate? I hate monopolies, but only disagree with people that would support them. I think we need to learn to agree to disagree more.
- Amygaz 9y ago
  I liked the 1st part of the book, the point that making something happens is more valuable to society than incremental update. To me that's the only definition of innovation and disruption. However, the rest is where is narcissism shines. But that seems to be a common pattern for narcissist writing self-help books: the first conceptual part can be useful, insightful and reasonable; the rest just shows how their general lack of creativity, of knowing how to actually do something, self gratification, and 'the end justifies the means', irresistibly and invariably takes over their mind... sad...
shadowtree 9y ago
He also wrote a libertarian pamphlet where he called women's right to vote a blocker of a truly capitalist democracy. Never backed down that claim. Here is the pamphlet, from 2009: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio... Quote: "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron." If that is ok for you - ok. Personally, I find this a very immature and troubling world view. Should tell the CEO of StitchFix that she is preventing capitalism with her IPO.
- pen2l 9y ago
  He also funded [1] videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlWKm01cauc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlWKm01cauc Things like these rot our society to the core by creating class and race divisions. I am very proud of YC for having distanced itself from Thiel, I just wish they were more vocal about it and that they'd done it earlier. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Support_for_political_activism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Support_for_politi...
- belorn 9y ago
  I always try to find the context when people are outraged by a quote, so I started by trying to figure out what the definition is of the quoted "capitalist democracy". Wikipedia gave "page does not exist", so I went to google. Google gave me a bunch of news article about Peter Thiel pamphlet. The term don't seems to exist outside it. So I went back to the pamphlet and looked if it defined the term only to find that the above quote is the first time he uses "capitalist democracy". The only thing that then make sense is to look above in the text to see what if anything related to either capitalist or democracy. However the only thing he say is that "capitalism simply is not that popular", and "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible". So I can only really make a blind guess what he is trying to say. In 1920 9% of women were working, while about 90-95% of men were working. It might be this difference that the pamphlet is referring to, but if so, it is also missing the historical context of that date. World War 1 ended in 1918, and during that year the US congress had planned to issue a female war draft because they ran out of men to fuel the war machine and the voluntary female work places did not attract enough women. Naturally you can't force people into the military without rightfully open up the issue of voting rights. The draft, and associated discussion regarding voting was more or less decided, but then the war ended. The female draft became first delayed and then scrapped. The question of voting as we all know did however get voted in. It is in the context of those first few years after world war 1 that the pamphlet bring up that quote. It seems to have no insight to 1920 economical environment, and even less so with the economy of 2009, that its hard to figure out what the intended meaning is supposed to be. Maybe the whole pamphlet was written to say that women should not vote because 1920s enjoyed political optimism?, but that too would also just be an other guess to what would be a very odd thing to write.
s73ver_ 9y ago
"I am still really puzzled over exactly why Peter Thiel so so hated." Honestly, it's because he's a jackass. Don't forget his absurdly libertarian stances regarding regulation, to the point where he funded studies that completely ignored the ethics/regulations around human medical testing. He's also espoused the views that women being allowed to vote is a bad thing, and that people like him should just run the place as a cabal. "So that leaves one final option: The reason that people hate Thiel is because he made enemies in the Liberal press, they smeared him relentlessly and people internalized this without doing their own independent thinking or research." No. Assuming that people don't agree with what you think simply because they haven't "done the research" is extremely uncivil. I have done the research, and I think he's a jackass. "I feel the tech industry is now a worse, less free place when demonization of this type has become so endemic." The only way you could think that is if you don't feel the rest of us have the right to express our opinions.
jweihwiehrwo 9y ago
OMG Peter Thiel helped shutdown a blog that in the grand scheme is hardly consequential! By all means, let's have a ticker tape parade for this man! How about his terrible company PayPal absconding with people's money for years now? How about his other terrible company Palantir being a shady analytics firm for the government? How about his desire to destroy the government in a non-democratic way to serve his billionaire interests, under some delusion that since he's rich he obviously should be allowed to do whatever he thinks.... and we all should just be ok with it. He's the sort of person that reminds of that Kirk meme: "What's that? I can't hear your arguments against what I'm doing because of how awesome I am!" His beliefs align largely with the chunk of the population that is being exploited most by his billionaire class. Meanwhile, the other 58% he'll happily ignore so long as he stands to benefit.
dragonwriter 9y ago
It's less Trump and Gawker and more his (older than either of those) perceived (accurately, as far as I can tell) association with the explicitly anti-democratic and pro-aristocratic neoreactionary movement. His support for Trump fits into that, though, because it's seen as part and parcel of Thiel's neoreactionary politics.
Amygaz 9y ago
I doubt it is one those two things. You need to think of the overall personality, all the small and big things, the ideology, the narcissism... these add up, and overtime one just get fed up. I am not connected to YC, but when I read that that's how what I presume happened, because I wish there were more people with a low tolerance for narcissistic personalities.
trhway 9y ago
blood boys - https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/this-anti-aging-start-up-is-paying-thousands-of-dollars-for-teen-blood https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/this-anti-aging-star... >why Peter Thiel so so hated. he just receives back what he gives. I mean there is huge difference between being disappointed/critical/etc. (i'm not a big fan of humanity myself) which is necessary for the progress and being hellbent on promulgating hate for and destroying, just for the sake of personal comfort, those few good things we, humans, have been able to achieve so far.
dogruck 9y ago
Peter Thiel is not universally hated. He’s only hated by a subset of society. He’s greatly admired by another subset.
swang 9y ago
He is a hypocrite. Libertarian, on the Committee for Protection of Journalists, but hey I don't like what you said about me. I'm going to lie in wait for 8-9 years and then secretly fund a lawsuit against you with a possibly winnable case. (PS: I don't want to see a Hulk Hogan sextape anymore than Hulk Hogan wanted it released) Gay, but will willingly support candidates who are against gay people: Ted Cruz, Donald Trump. Whomever will push his agenda. Also, Thiel didn't hide that he was gay, he was only "in the closet" when it affected him financially. Despite what you wrote, the tech industry is not very liberal. SF is liberal, and a lot of tech companies are in SF but a lot of VC money is not in SF, and most VCs I don't think most people would consider very liberal. And his hedge was Trump wasn't as bad as he was going to be during the campaign, that it was all theater. But he's rich so none of that matters to him if he's wrong. Worst case scenario is he flies to New Zealand to survive any fallout.
- mrgordon 9y ago
  In case it wasn't clear, swang means this literally. Peter Thiel used his billions to get New Zealand citizenship after spending only twelve days there so he has a backup plan after our healthcare, schools, transportation networks, etc. are gutted
- 0xbear 9y ago
  In what way is Trump “against gay people”?
  - futhey 9y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/us/politics/white-house-lgbt-rights-military-civil-rights-act.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/us/politics/white-house-l...
    - 0xbear 9y ago
      Trump does not control DOJ. And transgender service members were only allowed less than a year before they were disallowed. Moreover, the “ban” is only a suspension of continued implementation, those already in service can continue to serve, and will not be denied reenlistment. Somehow no one had any issues with Obama not allowing them for 7 years, not even a peep was heard, and he was never called the enemy of gay people. I’m not even going to dignify the third thing on that list with a response.
Simulacra 9y ago
I think he's hated because he's a formidable challenge against an entrenched belief system. People don't like their beliefs challenged, especially when it's the overwhelming majority, IMO. Thiel does that, without worry or shame, and that upsets some folks...
- ben_w 9y ago
  Is he formidable because the arguments are good, or because he’s rich? And how would we distinguish the truth from the fiction, given the ease with which we fall into us-vs-them thinking, the halo effect, and boolean-valued morality, or treat arguments are soldiers for Us in an eternal struggle against Them?
postramus 9y ago
People dislike "liberty for me but not for thee" hypocrites, especially those with the means and willpower to act on that impulse. It's not complicated!
mrgordon 9y ago
Many people hated Thiel before Trump and the Gawker lawsuit. I strongly disliked him fifteen years before that. Since no one else has mentioned it, maybe we should talk about Palantir which is one of his most high profile companies. He co-founded it and is/was the largest shareholder so the ethics of that one fall squarely on him. Its part of why he wants to be so friendly with Trump. Many more billion$$$$ of lucrative no-bid government contracts for Palantir and Thiel personally. Here is an article from The Intercept that adds more detail: https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/ https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palanti... Its titled "HOW PETER THIEL’S PALANTIR HELPED THE NSA SPY ON THE WHOLE WORLD". One excerpt: In the demo, Palantir engineers showed how their software could be used to identify Wikipedia users who belonged to a fictional radical religious sect and graph their social relationships. In Palantir’s pitch, its approach to the VAST Challenge involved using software to enable “many analysts working together [to] truly leverage their collective mind.” The fake scenario’s target, a cartoonishly sinister religious sect called “the Paraiso Movement,” was suspected of a terrorist bombing, but the unmentioned and obvious subtext of the experiment was the fact that such techniques could be applied to de-anonymize and track members of any political or ideological group. Among a litany of other conclusions, Palantir determined the group was prone to violence because its “Manifesto’s intellectual influences include ‘Pancho Villa, Che Guevara, Leon Trotsky, [and] Cuban revolutionary Jose Martí,’ a list of military commanders and revolutionaries with a history of violent actions.”
fareesh 9y ago
I have great admiration for Thiel as an entrepreneur and I agree with him on a number of his economic views. It's unfortunate that his infamous Cato essay point about women and welfare recipients being difficult constituencies for libertarians has been misconstrued (maybe purposely for political reasons?) as if to mean "women and welfare recipients should therefore not be allowed to vote". When I watch the American news media covering state & federal elections, they routinely say that X candidate or party usually has a tough time with women/people of color/college students/older people, so I never really agreed with the interpretation that many in the media seemed to want me to derive out of that essay. It's really unfortunate that politics has turned into some kind of tribal warfare and polarized the USA to this degree. From the perspective of an outsider it seems like there either side is somehow morally superior to the other. Of late I personally tend to hear things like "taxation is theft" and "property is for fascists" on a disturbingly regular basis from voices that seem to grow louder as time goes by. Where did all the moderates go?
- taysic 9y ago
  His original quote was "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron." He seems pro democracy but then seems to think that some people's voting patterns threaten it. He clarified the statement with: "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" So he doesn't like voting at all? Isn't that a pillar of democracy? Strange and I am libertarian leaning... https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/peter-thiel-donates-donald-trump_us_5804fd5de4b0162c043d2fa7 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/peter-thiel-donates-don...
  - fareesh 9y ago
    If Rivendell one day decided to become a democracy, and I as an Orc wanted to bring the Orcish way of life to Rivendell, the prospect of Elves being allowed to vote would factually be a hindrance to that kind of model assuming that Elves want to preserve their existing Elvish way of life. (The implicit assumption here is that these particular voting groups are statistically more in favor of a welfare based system than a merit based one.) Therefore, if one were to believe that the Orcish way of life equals "making things better", and one is living in a democratic system where the Elves are allowed to vote, then I would "have little hope that voting will make things better", since voting would lead us away from an Orcish way of life, which I assume to be superior. He loves voting He thinks taking away voting rights is absurd He has little hope that voting is going to make things better, given the outcome of those votes. The opinion here is "capitalism good, libertarianism good, democracy good, XYZ groups tend to vote against my political philosophy". The rest is facts. Given that the democracy votes the way it does, and is heavily affected by the votes of XYZ groups given their sizes, factually, voting will not make things opinionatedly better, as an outcome.
arprocter 9y ago
>Y Combinator was expected to "Apologize" for not firing someone for holding political beliefs that align them with 42% Isn’t your percentage of those who bothered to vote? 40-50% (everywhere quotes different numbers) of eligible voters didn’t vote in 2016

danans 9y ago

> - He is remotely associated with Trump I don't think his association with Trump deserves him anything beyond disapproval from someone who also disapproves of Trump, definitely not hatred. And I've almost never seen any hate-filled comments directed towards him on HN that weren't downvoted. But to suggest that he is only "remotely" associated with Trump seems like a blatant misrepresentation of his activities during and after the election.

rtx 9y ago

Being part of a group is not enough you have to proclaim it.

tensor 9y ago

I personally don't like him because he's hostile towards education.

samsonradu 9y ago
I've watched more than a dozen talks from him and the education topic was one of the most interesting points. Care to elaborate what you mean by hostile?
- tensor 9y ago
  He's of the opinion that university is a waste of time and has gone so far as paying people to drop out. This isn't for people who are going into trades and might strictly not need a university education, but for people who he thinks should go on to found technical, medical, and engineering startups. I'm of the opinion that university is good for everyone, even people who don't strictly need it for their jobs. Democracy only works if you have an educated public that values critical thinking.
  - samsonradu 9y ago
    > He's of the opinion that university is a waste of time What I understood was more like it's a waste of money, considering the outrageous price you pay for it and it's ROI. Of course university is good for everyone, but if it comes along with a huge debt? He blamed the education system for bubbling up the prices and not providing enough value, to the point alternatives should be considered. I really liked his point that people should stop believing university is all you need to be successful in life and blindly throw money at them because they have no better idea.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Democracy only works if you have an educated public that values critical thinking. Thiel has openly said that democracy has become incompatible with his notion of freedom (and seems to prefer the latter given the conflict), so its not hard to see why he might not support something essential to the function of democracy.

majormajor 9y ago

I have some concerns about his fellowship thing looking like an inviting-but-ultimately-a-trap attempt to use 18 year olds to advance his own political agenda, but wouldn't say that's hateable, as theirs definitely a more positive way to look at it. I just think the implementation is not really set up for success for the individuals compared to the opportunity cost. I could see people with an even harsher take on his various super-individualistic projects, though.

Jhsto 9y ago
> I just think the implementation is not really set up for success for the individuals compared to the opportunity cost. Care to elaborate?
hobofan 9y ago
The fellowship is one of the few things I like about him. I was in exactly the position the fellowship was designed for where I had to decide between continuing to study or further pursuing my startup. IIRC correctly the age restrictions were lower back then, and I didn't apply because I was just slightly too old, which in retrospect was a stupid reason not to apply. I ended up pursuing the startup anyway (which ended up failing), and am now in a very good position experience- and job-wise, where I probably would have been in 5-10 years otherwise (_if_ we assume that I would have been able to endure/pass university). Given what I've seen/heard from alumni I (or friends of me) have met, they largely seem to be doing very well. Giving someone a 3-5 year headstart can be a significant boost. The only way I see the fellowship having bigger opportunity cost than university is if you subscribe to the school of thought of making "Harvard connections", which can turn out to be more advantageous.

jedberg 9y ago

Theil didn't just hurt a bully. He took it a step further. For one, he financed someone else's lawsuit, because his own was unwinnable (they did in fact print the truth, that he is gay). More importantly, he hurt free speech through the chilling effect of his suit. What he basically did was say, "don't ever print anything negative about a billionaire because they can take down your entire business". So now if a billionaire really does do something newsworthy and negative, places like the New York Times might think twice about publishing that story, for fear of the cost of defending a billionaire's lawsuit. That's why people dislike him (other than his Trump support, although to be fair I haven't heard anything about him supporting Trump anymore).

sov 9y ago
The sad take-away from Hogan v Gawker isn't that a millionaire can spend money on a whim to exert justice where he so desires, it's that you need that level of money to seek justice in the first place.
- samsonradu 9y ago
  This! I honestly can't understand how one can blame Thiel for killing free speech. He basically evened the chances in front of justice. If there's anyone to blame for killing free speech it's the legal system who decided against Gawker.
putlake 9y ago
He funded someone else's lawsuit, yes. But it's not as if Thiel bribed the judge and jury. The lawsuit won on its own legal merits. Gawker did something they had no right to do, which the law recognized.
ader5ty 9y ago
Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.
briandear 9y ago
EFF funds other people’s lawsuits too. Isn’t that the exact same thing you are complaining about?

bbctol 9y ago

I mean I hate him because I read Zero to One and noticed his thoughts on monopoly are insane, but sure, you can assume people aren't doing independent thinking and research while in turn not doing independent thinking and research.

xupybd 9y ago
Does that warrant hate? I hate monopolies, but only disagree with people that would support them. I think we need to learn to agree to disagree more.
Amygaz 9y ago
I liked the 1st part of the book, the point that making something happens is more valuable to society than incremental update. To me that's the only definition of innovation and disruption. However, the rest is where is narcissism shines. But that seems to be a common pattern for narcissist writing self-help books: the first conceptual part can be useful, insightful and reasonable; the rest just shows how their general lack of creativity, of knowing how to actually do something, self gratification, and 'the end justifies the means', irresistibly and invariably takes over their mind... sad...

shadowtree 9y ago

He also wrote a libertarian pamphlet where he called women's right to vote a blocker of a truly capitalist democracy. Never backed down that claim. Here is the pamphlet, from 2009: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio... Quote: "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron." If that is ok for you - ok. Personally, I find this a very immature and troubling world view. Should tell the CEO of StitchFix that she is preventing capitalism with her IPO.

pen2l 9y ago
He also funded [1] videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlWKm01cauc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlWKm01cauc Things like these rot our society to the core by creating class and race divisions. I am very proud of YC for having distanced itself from Thiel, I just wish they were more vocal about it and that they'd done it earlier. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Support_for_political_activism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Support_for_politi...
belorn 9y ago
I always try to find the context when people are outraged by a quote, so I started by trying to figure out what the definition is of the quoted "capitalist democracy". Wikipedia gave "page does not exist", so I went to google. Google gave me a bunch of news article about Peter Thiel pamphlet. The term don't seems to exist outside it. So I went back to the pamphlet and looked if it defined the term only to find that the above quote is the first time he uses "capitalist democracy". The only thing that then make sense is to look above in the text to see what if anything related to either capitalist or democracy. However the only thing he say is that "capitalism simply is not that popular", and "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible". So I can only really make a blind guess what he is trying to say. In 1920 9% of women were working, while about 90-95% of men were working. It might be this difference that the pamphlet is referring to, but if so, it is also missing the historical context of that date. World War 1 ended in 1918, and during that year the US congress had planned to issue a female war draft because they ran out of men to fuel the war machine and the voluntary female work places did not attract enough women. Naturally you can't force people into the military without rightfully open up the issue of voting rights. The draft, and associated discussion regarding voting was more or less decided, but then the war ended. The female draft became first delayed and then scrapped. The question of voting as we all know did however get voted in. It is in the context of those first few years after world war 1 that the pamphlet bring up that quote. It seems to have no insight to 1920 economical environment, and even less so with the economy of 2009, that its hard to figure out what the intended meaning is supposed to be. Maybe the whole pamphlet was written to say that women should not vote because 1920s enjoyed political optimism?, but that too would also just be an other guess to what would be a very odd thing to write.

s73ver_ 9y ago

"I am still really puzzled over exactly why Peter Thiel so so hated." Honestly, it's because he's a jackass. Don't forget his absurdly libertarian stances regarding regulation, to the point where he funded studies that completely ignored the ethics/regulations around human medical testing. He's also espoused the views that women being allowed to vote is a bad thing, and that people like him should just run the place as a cabal. "So that leaves one final option: The reason that people hate Thiel is because he made enemies in the Liberal press, they smeared him relentlessly and people internalized this without doing their own independent thinking or research." No. Assuming that people don't agree with what you think simply because they haven't "done the research" is extremely uncivil. I have done the research, and I think he's a jackass. "I feel the tech industry is now a worse, less free place when demonization of this type has become so endemic." The only way you could think that is if you don't feel the rest of us have the right to express our opinions.

jweihwiehrwo 9y ago

OMG Peter Thiel helped shutdown a blog that in the grand scheme is hardly consequential! By all means, let's have a ticker tape parade for this man! How about his terrible company PayPal absconding with people's money for years now? How about his other terrible company Palantir being a shady analytics firm for the government? How about his desire to destroy the government in a non-democratic way to serve his billionaire interests, under some delusion that since he's rich he obviously should be allowed to do whatever he thinks.... and we all should just be ok with it. He's the sort of person that reminds of that Kirk meme: "What's that? I can't hear your arguments against what I'm doing because of how awesome I am!" His beliefs align largely with the chunk of the population that is being exploited most by his billionaire class. Meanwhile, the other 58% he'll happily ignore so long as he stands to benefit.

dragonwriter 9y ago

It's less Trump and Gawker and more his (older than either of those) perceived (accurately, as far as I can tell) association with the explicitly anti-democratic and pro-aristocratic neoreactionary movement. His support for Trump fits into that, though, because it's seen as part and parcel of Thiel's neoreactionary politics.

Amygaz 9y ago

I doubt it is one those two things. You need to think of the overall personality, all the small and big things, the ideology, the narcissism... these add up, and overtime one just get fed up. I am not connected to YC, but when I read that that's how what I presume happened, because I wish there were more people with a low tolerance for narcissistic personalities.

trhway 9y ago

blood boys - https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/this-anti-aging-start-up-is-paying-thousands-of-dollars-for-teen-blood https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/this-anti-aging-star... >why Peter Thiel so so hated. he just receives back what he gives. I mean there is huge difference between being disappointed/critical/etc. (i'm not a big fan of humanity myself) which is necessary for the progress and being hellbent on promulgating hate for and destroying, just for the sake of personal comfort, those few good things we, humans, have been able to achieve so far.

dogruck 9y ago

Peter Thiel is not universally hated. He’s only hated by a subset of society. He’s greatly admired by another subset.

swang 9y ago

He is a hypocrite. Libertarian, on the Committee for Protection of Journalists, but hey I don't like what you said about me. I'm going to lie in wait for 8-9 years and then secretly fund a lawsuit against you with a possibly winnable case. (PS: I don't want to see a Hulk Hogan sextape anymore than Hulk Hogan wanted it released) Gay, but will willingly support candidates who are against gay people: Ted Cruz, Donald Trump. Whomever will push his agenda. Also, Thiel didn't hide that he was gay, he was only "in the closet" when it affected him financially. Despite what you wrote, the tech industry is not very liberal. SF is liberal, and a lot of tech companies are in SF but a lot of VC money is not in SF, and most VCs I don't think most people would consider very liberal. And his hedge was Trump wasn't as bad as he was going to be during the campaign, that it was all theater. But he's rich so none of that matters to him if he's wrong. Worst case scenario is he flies to New Zealand to survive any fallout.

mrgordon 9y ago
In case it wasn't clear, swang means this literally. Peter Thiel used his billions to get New Zealand citizenship after spending only twelve days there so he has a backup plan after our healthcare, schools, transportation networks, etc. are gutted
0xbear 9y ago
In what way is Trump “against gay people”?
- futhey 9y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/us/politics/white-house-lgbt-rights-military-civil-rights-act.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/us/politics/white-house-l...
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    Trump does not control DOJ. And transgender service members were only allowed less than a year before they were disallowed. Moreover, the “ban” is only a suspension of continued implementation, those already in service can continue to serve, and will not be denied reenlistment. Somehow no one had any issues with Obama not allowing them for 7 years, not even a peep was heard, and he was never called the enemy of gay people. I’m not even going to dignify the third thing on that list with a response.

Simulacra 9y ago

I think he's hated because he's a formidable challenge against an entrenched belief system. People don't like their beliefs challenged, especially when it's the overwhelming majority, IMO. Thiel does that, without worry or shame, and that upsets some folks...

ben_w 9y ago
Is he formidable because the arguments are good, or because he’s rich? And how would we distinguish the truth from the fiction, given the ease with which we fall into us-vs-them thinking, the halo effect, and boolean-valued morality, or treat arguments are soldiers for Us in an eternal struggle against Them?

postramus 9y ago

People dislike "liberty for me but not for thee" hypocrites, especially those with the means and willpower to act on that impulse. It's not complicated!

mrgordon 9y ago

Many people hated Thiel before Trump and the Gawker lawsuit. I strongly disliked him fifteen years before that. Since no one else has mentioned it, maybe we should talk about Palantir which is one of his most high profile companies. He co-founded it and is/was the largest shareholder so the ethics of that one fall squarely on him. Its part of why he wants to be so friendly with Trump. Many more billion$$$$ of lucrative no-bid government contracts for Palantir and Thiel personally. Here is an article from The Intercept that adds more detail: https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/ https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palanti... Its titled "HOW PETER THIEL’S PALANTIR HELPED THE NSA SPY ON THE WHOLE WORLD". One excerpt: In the demo, Palantir engineers showed how their software could be used to identify Wikipedia users who belonged to a fictional radical religious sect and graph their social relationships. In Palantir’s pitch, its approach to the VAST Challenge involved using software to enable “many analysts working together [to] truly leverage their collective mind.” The fake scenario’s target, a cartoonishly sinister religious sect called “the Paraiso Movement,” was suspected of a terrorist bombing, but the unmentioned and obvious subtext of the experiment was the fact that such techniques could be applied to de-anonymize and track members of any political or ideological group. Among a litany of other conclusions, Palantir determined the group was prone to violence because its “Manifesto’s intellectual influences include ‘Pancho Villa, Che Guevara, Leon Trotsky, [and] Cuban revolutionary Jose Martí,’ a list of military commanders and revolutionaries with a history of violent actions.”

fareesh 9y ago

I have great admiration for Thiel as an entrepreneur and I agree with him on a number of his economic views. It's unfortunate that his infamous Cato essay point about women and welfare recipients being difficult constituencies for libertarians has been misconstrued (maybe purposely for political reasons?) as if to mean "women and welfare recipients should therefore not be allowed to vote". When I watch the American news media covering state & federal elections, they routinely say that X candidate or party usually has a tough time with women/people of color/college students/older people, so I never really agreed with the interpretation that many in the media seemed to want me to derive out of that essay. It's really unfortunate that politics has turned into some kind of tribal warfare and polarized the USA to this degree. From the perspective of an outsider it seems like there either side is somehow morally superior to the other. Of late I personally tend to hear things like "taxation is theft" and "property is for fascists" on a disturbingly regular basis from voices that seem to grow louder as time goes by. Where did all the moderates go?

taysic 9y ago
His original quote was "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron." He seems pro democracy but then seems to think that some people's voting patterns threaten it. He clarified the statement with: "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" So he doesn't like voting at all? Isn't that a pillar of democracy? Strange and I am libertarian leaning... https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/peter-thiel-donates-donald-trump_us_5804fd5de4b0162c043d2fa7 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/peter-thiel-donates-don...
- fareesh 9y ago
  If Rivendell one day decided to become a democracy, and I as an Orc wanted to bring the Orcish way of life to Rivendell, the prospect of Elves being allowed to vote would factually be a hindrance to that kind of model assuming that Elves want to preserve their existing Elvish way of life. (The implicit assumption here is that these particular voting groups are statistically more in favor of a welfare based system than a merit based one.) Therefore, if one were to believe that the Orcish way of life equals "making things better", and one is living in a democratic system where the Elves are allowed to vote, then I would "have little hope that voting will make things better", since voting would lead us away from an Orcish way of life, which I assume to be superior. He loves voting He thinks taking away voting rights is absurd He has little hope that voting is going to make things better, given the outcome of those votes. The opinion here is "capitalism good, libertarianism good, democracy good, XYZ groups tend to vote against my political philosophy". The rest is facts. Given that the democracy votes the way it does, and is heavily affected by the votes of XYZ groups given their sizes, factually, voting will not make things opinionatedly better, as an outcome.

arprocter 9y ago

>Y Combinator was expected to "Apologize" for not firing someone for holding political beliefs that align them with 42% Isn’t your percentage of those who bothered to vote? 40-50% (everywhere quotes different numbers) of eligible voters didn’t vote in 2016