7 ms·

that's someone whose job is on the line being polite about a board member's political activism. the less polite way to put it would be that Peter Thiel is ball

• friendlybus 7y ago
  really?
  • setpatchaddress 7y ago
    yup. https://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/crew-exposes-dark-money-donors-including-thiel-devos-and-adelson/ https://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/crew-exposes...
    • friendlybus 7y ago
      Can you tell me where the money from Colbert's Americans for a Better Tommorow SuperPAC has gone? He's not legally required to tell us, yet a revelation that a political group receives money from people with money to spare is framed as shocking... I don't know what is interesting about this story.
      • iron0013 7y ago
        It is awesome to me that you have apparently entirely missed the point of Colbert's SuperPAC. You should check out Les Misérables, a standard legal procedural about a dedicated police detective on the trail of a dangerous felon.
        • friendlybus 7y ago
          I was one of Colbert's biggest fan, I'm aware of the point. The point that was apparently unclear was that superpac's have famously been the norm. I would not change an ounce of the facts about what Crew and Ajs have done together, including the revealing of said funding streams. The political rigmarole of sensationalizing 'dark money' which is already famous and being shocked by something people cheered for in a joke comes across as too blatantly political and boring.
          • iron0013 7y ago
            You're right, once corruption becomes pervasive enough, addressing it becomes way too boring and obvious. Better to do nothing.
            • friendlybus 7y ago
              You're telling me a public republican investing in republican political parties through a famous and legal method is now corruption? This story is just some politician deciding this kind of payment system needs to go and making it so. The salesmanship of dem vs rep is boring.
• s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
  Wow, you should watch less CNN. Edit: there's nothing to dispute in his post, it's all conspiracy theory and talking points barely strung together. "Dark-money Republican activism" Lol. Post some sources and I will show you the other side, as a bonus I'll give you a similar "dark-money" event from the Democrats.
  • metaobject 7y ago
    What do you dispute in his post?
    • brtt 7y ago
      it's easier to dismiss the totality of an argument if you manufacture some level of aggrievement
    • um_ya 7y ago
      That which has no source, takes no source to dismiss. The "Dark money in the republican party" claim was not substantiated. I can say there is a unicorn on the moon that shoots candy out of it's butt, how would you dispute it?
  • dralley 7y ago
    That is one of the milder critiques of Thiel, considering some of the stuff Palantir gets up to.
    • paulmd 7y ago
      Not political activism, but Peter Thiel was also doing research into using the blood of the young to rejuvenate himself and prolong his life. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/08/peter-thiel-wants-to-inject-himself-with-young-peoples-blood https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/08/peter-thiel-wants-to... (Wanting to live forever seems to be a not-uncommon desire among the hyper-rich. Larry Ellison's only known voluntary charitable contribution is similarly to a foundation he set up for researching the prolonging of life... specifically, his.)
    • 7y ago
• microcolonel 7y ago
  Everyone knows that Democrats don't propagandize, maneuver, or move money at the outer limits of what is legal. Not once ever.
  • viscanti 7y ago
    Pro tip: If you find that the only argument you can make is whataboutism, then you're probably defending something that you shouldn't be defending. It's fine to talk about the political influence of Zuckerberg's friends (and board members) and the implications of that without having to resort to arguments about "both sides".
• FlowNote 7y ago
  And not a Dang in sight. Imagine my shock.
• Chris_Chambers 7y ago
  Take your meds, schizo.
• isoskeles 7y ago
  HN is becoming pathetic.
• weberc2 7y ago
  I don't see how you get "what he really means is ... all kinds of dark money republican activism" from "Mark is friends with Peter Thiel and a lot of Republicans". This seems like baseless conspiracy theorism unless you're privy to more information.
• throwGuardian 7y ago
  > the less polite way ... No - that's the highly editorialized, average "opinion" of Maddow, Lemon,... PBS is much better at not indoctrinating their audience on conspiracies Did Russia hack the British elections recently? Did Russia plant Tulsi into the DNC as a Trojan horse. Clinton seems to claim so. Edit: The Russians have caught wind of this comment, and frantically down voting it, lest the media uncovers them lurking on HN
• grizzlyPinocch 7y ago
  The biggest problem I have with arguments like this is that it seems to take the extent of Russian influence out of context. In the Mueller report, it mentions that the IRA purchased ~$100,000 worth of ads on Facebook (pg. 25). In comparison, the Russian government has spend ~$40m lobbying the US government through legal channels. We shouldn't be comfortable with Russian influence, but we shouldn't allow our political opinions to be so dramatically warped by something that seems so proportionately small. As far as the Russians go, I think characterizing Thiel as being part of some "dark-money" republican machine that supports "Russian propaganda" is not accurate (or to the extent to which it is accurate, it doesn't matter). Not defending his position on other things, though.
  • dhimes 7y ago
    Measuring influence by spend might be misleading. The leverage they discovered on social media could have surprised even them. I saw a lot of nonsense get spewed on Facebook- things that could be quite simply fact-checked, and people completely bought into them. Also, contradictory emotional appeals were spread (without, of course, the responders recognizing the contradictions). Finally, I was on a forum when someone gave stupid numbers concerning Obamacare, that I quickly checked and challenged (he left and never came back). Having discovered that people by and large won't think critically about what you're saying, and using the viral nature of emotional appeals to create a general sentiment (which will later be rationalized) payed off for somebody. I don't know if it was the Russians or not.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • WorldMaker 7y ago
      The very nature that Facebook sold micro-targeted ads for pennies just because they were "only" for the smallest audiences, but yet these audiences were most likely to reshare the content virally, effectively whitewashing the "sponsored content" tag off it into a larger population of feeds, effectively created a scenario where ad spend on Facebook at the time must have been absolutely misleading.
• squish78 7y ago
  What is "dark money"?
  • cavanasm 7y ago
    No, it has a pretty precise definition. It's money spent on political activism that isn't publicly reported, typically through a specific category of non-profit organization.
  • nielsbot 7y ago
    Are you being facetious? Definition here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dark_money https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dark_money
  • gct 7y ago
    Money spent by non-profits that don't have to report their donors (hence "dark")
  • paulmd 7y ago
    money that moves through PACs/SuperPACs and thus doesn't have to be disclosed and is not subject to campaign finance limitations, as opposed to direct spending by individuals or campaign funding.
• fossuser 7y ago
  I think this is an unfair characterization of his political views. This is my understanding of how Peter Thiel views the world: - Our entire economic system is structured for growth. With growth things are good and everyone can share in a piece of an ever-growing pie. Without growth you get a zero sum game and collapse. - We are in a 'great stagnation' where growth is stalling in most industries. Every industry outside of tech (and arguably tech now too). - The 'Neoliberals' (Obama and Clinton types, liberal centrists) don't see this stagnation as the existential threat it is and the institutions in place can't make the changes necessary to help correct for it. - Without correcting for this problem you get an apocalyptic scenario and collapse of society. - There's a dash of fair trade protectionism and an anti-immigration view somewhere in this that I don't totally understand (this is my weakest understanding of his politics, but it comes up when he talks and in his donations). ## Then with this framing Trump in this context: - I think Peter Thiel thinks Donald Trump is an idiot, but his administration's willingness to ignore precedent may allow them to break out of some of the existing constraints that prevent large change. - Focusing on anything except the stagnation problem is meaningless in the long run. - The push back against China IP issues is good and something others were afraid to do. - He thinks the immigration push back and protection of American workers is necessary for political stability. ## The questions I have with this view: - He often asserts this stagnation problem exists, but without any real evidence (he just acts like it's obvious). I'd want some reason to think that now is different than historically - is it just a comparison to low hanging fruit in scientific discovery of the last couple hundred years? Something else? I think there are problems in academia, but I'm not sure I buy this 'great stagnation' argument up front. - Trump seems like killing the patient to cure the disease, Peter Thiel would argue that actually things are mostly the same and Trump hasn't really changed day to day life for people. Currently this is largely true (unless you're an undocumented immigrant that had your children taken from you). This is playing with fire though and collapses of democracy are real - Putin was elected before becoming a dictator. I think he's playing dangerously here with his assumptions of what is possible. - Continued support after this first term I just can't accept - it seems pretty clear at this point that Trump is a bad/criminal actor that only has his interests in mind with his actions.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• Elof 7y ago
  Or Thiel is a malicious libertian and wants to tear our republic apart to rebuild it in his image
• zackees 7y ago
  "Russian propaganda" is all over facebook? This has never been substantiated. We had 3 years of the mainstream media networks pushing the Russian-Collusion narrative and how Trump is going to be impeached for it. Then the narrative get's utterly dismantled. It's such a farce at this point that the DNC didn't even list Russian collusion in it's articles of impeachment against the President. Still, as this circus continues, very smart people still believe that Trump was elected because of Putin, and is in fact an agent of Russia. It's mind blowing.
  • JamesBarney 7y ago
    The Mueller report is pretty clear the Russian government tried to interfere with the investigation and that individuals close to Trump coordinated with the Russians. > The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016. In June, the Democratic National Committee and its cyber response team publicly announced that Russian hackers had compromised its computer network. Releases of hacked materials—hacks that public reporting soon attributed to the Russian government—began that same month. Additional releases followed in July through the organization WikiLeaks, with further releases in October and November. >Dozens of IRA employees were responsible for operating accounts and personas on different U.S. social media platforms. The IRA referred to employees assigned to operate the social media accounts as “specialists.”42 Starting as early as 2014, the IRA’s U.S. operations included social media specialists focusing on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.43 The IRA later added specialists who operated on Tumblr and Instagram accounts. 44 > Initially, the IRA created social media accounts that pretended to be the personal accounts of U.S. persons.45 By early 2015, the IRA began to create larger social media groups or public social media pages that claimed (falsely) to be affiliated with U.S. political and grassroots organizations. In certain cases, the IRA created accounts that mimicked real U.S. organizations. For example, one IRA-controlled Twitter account, @TEN_GOP, purported to be connected to the Tennessee Republican Party.46 More commonly, the IRA created accounts in the names of fictitious U.S. organizations and grassroots groups and used these accounts to pose as antiimmigration groups, Tea Party activists, Black Lives Matter protestors, and other U.S. social and political activists. The IRA closely monitored "https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf" https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf"