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The Gospel According to Peter Thiel

33 points by Bostonian 6y ago

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
I have a difficult relationship with Thiel. On the one hand, it is hard not to agree with some the quotes found in his Zero to One book ( "the most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd, but to think for yourself" ). On the other, Palantir, based on what we know about it, is the embodiment of what I do not want in society. I am not sure I am happy what he did with Gawker debacle. In other words, I am kinda interested in his gospel, but I am not sure I like what that gospel results in.
- 2squirrels 6y ago
  Agreed. Gawker situation was crazy and vindictive, he not only bankrupted the company but many of the employees personally.
  - anewdirection 6y ago
    And yet, Gawker was not a positive force by any stretch. Its hard to reconsile two vile things when they seem to have worked out for the greater good.
    - throwawaymanbot 6y ago
      But they did some good work on stories about people in the public Eye that they did not like. Thiel won that battle but will ultimately lose the war.
  - nickff 6y ago
    Denton repeatedly dared his victims to sue him; eventually someone called his bluff. The situation may bring other concerns to mind, but Gawker deserved what it got.
viburnum 6y ago
Thiel is against women having the right to vote because he doesn’t like who they vote for. Knowing this makes Thiel fans angry, because they worship wealth.
- jger15 6y ago
  https://twitter.com/juliagalef/status/1054898254649802752?lang=en https://twitter.com/juliagalef/status/1054898254649802752?la...
  - casefields 6y ago
    That's called nuance. In the Twitter age we don't got time for that. It's non-stop outrage baby!
  - viburnum 6y ago
    Yep, Thiel’s fans will make any excuse for him.
  - dangus 6y ago
    I don’t think the full context makes him look much better. I don’t know how one argues that the full quote isn’t making the argument that women’s suffrage was a net negative. As we learned from people like Donald Trump, you don’t have to directly say sexist/racist things to be sexist/racist. Not only that, the idea being presented is completely unsubstantiated. It’s just lumping women into a group based on their possession of ovaries.
- Proven 6y ago
  I hold that against him, that he supports the idea of democracy in the first place.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dangus 6y ago
The ideas presented in this article, such as universities being bad, align closely with right-wing anti-intellectualism. There’s nothing about university education that turns you into a submissive drone as the article suggests. It’s just thinly-veiled anti-education, perhaps even fascism. Heck, Thiel seems to want to run a floating city - perhaps with himself as the dictator (the article doesn’t say). Thiel is just another “I’ve got mine, fuck you” billionaire who doesn’t want to give scraps to the little people. The ideas are being fluffed up as enlightened, but all I see here is someone paying for followers/disciples/high risk high reward investment opportunities. It’s easy to come up with radical experiments when you’ve got billions in the bank to cushion the failures. Unlike someone like Bill Gates who is trying to improve the state of the world, Peter Thiel sees it as his playground to poke and mess with. As a benefactor of two degrees from a top-ranked university and the whitest-of-the-white privilege career path of Hedge Fund Manager, along with a perfectly timed startup with no chance of replication if it were attempted just 10 years earlier or 10 years later, I have to believe and assume that many of Thiel’s libertarian ideals are based on hypocrisy and willful ignorance. Change just one input variable and he would not be a billionaire. If he were not so fabulously lucky he would be just another one of the conformist worker drones he abhors. I’d like to think that we can see through this ruse - in reality, he’s just a wealthy guy who thinks he deserves his status, that it was 100% earned, which in turn validates a bunch of pseudo-intellectual nonsense. After all, only an incredibly enlightened smart person with “good genes” could be so wealthy and successful in the eyes of much of the self-unaware rich. [1] [1] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-18043-001 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-18043-001

33 points by Bostonian 6y ago

I have a difficult relationship with Thiel. On the one hand, it is hard not to agree with some the quotes found in his Zero to One book ( "the most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd, but to think for yourself" ). On the other, Palantir, based on what we know about it, is the embodiment of what I do not want in society. I am not sure I am happy what he did with Gawker debacle. In other words, I am kinda interested in his gospel, but I am not sure I like what that gospel results in.

2squirrels 6y ago
Agreed. Gawker situation was crazy and vindictive, he not only bankrupted the company but many of the employees personally.
- anewdirection 6y ago
  And yet, Gawker was not a positive force by any stretch. Its hard to reconsile two vile things when they seem to have worked out for the greater good.
  - throwawaymanbot 6y ago
    But they did some good work on stories about people in the public Eye that they did not like. Thiel won that battle but will ultimately lose the war.
- nickff 6y ago
  Denton repeatedly dared his victims to sue him; eventually someone called his bluff. The situation may bring other concerns to mind, but Gawker deserved what it got.

viburnum 6y ago

Thiel is against women having the right to vote because he doesn’t like who they vote for. Knowing this makes Thiel fans angry, because they worship wealth.

jger15 6y ago
https://twitter.com/juliagalef/status/1054898254649802752?lang=en https://twitter.com/juliagalef/status/1054898254649802752?la...
- casefields 6y ago
  That's called nuance. In the Twitter age we don't got time for that. It's non-stop outrage baby!
- viburnum 6y ago
  Yep, Thiel’s fans will make any excuse for him.
- dangus 6y ago
  I don’t think the full context makes him look much better. I don’t know how one argues that the full quote isn’t making the argument that women’s suffrage was a net negative. As we learned from people like Donald Trump, you don’t have to directly say sexist/racist things to be sexist/racist. Not only that, the idea being presented is completely unsubstantiated. It’s just lumping women into a group based on their possession of ovaries.
Proven 6y ago
I hold that against him, that he supports the idea of democracy in the first place.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dangus 6y ago

The ideas presented in this article, such as universities being bad, align closely with right-wing anti-intellectualism. There’s nothing about university education that turns you into a submissive drone as the article suggests. It’s just thinly-veiled anti-education, perhaps even fascism. Heck, Thiel seems to want to run a floating city - perhaps with himself as the dictator (the article doesn’t say). Thiel is just another “I’ve got mine, fuck you” billionaire who doesn’t want to give scraps to the little people. The ideas are being fluffed up as enlightened, but all I see here is someone paying for followers/disciples/high risk high reward investment opportunities. It’s easy to come up with radical experiments when you’ve got billions in the bank to cushion the failures. Unlike someone like Bill Gates who is trying to improve the state of the world, Peter Thiel sees it as his playground to poke and mess with. As a benefactor of two degrees from a top-ranked university and the whitest-of-the-white privilege career path of Hedge Fund Manager, along with a perfectly timed startup with no chance of replication if it were attempted just 10 years earlier or 10 years later, I have to believe and assume that many of Thiel’s libertarian ideals are based on hypocrisy and willful ignorance. Change just one input variable and he would not be a billionaire. If he were not so fabulously lucky he would be just another one of the conformist worker drones he abhors. I’d like to think that we can see through this ruse - in reality, he’s just a wealthy guy who thinks he deserves his status, that it was 100% earned, which in turn validates a bunch of pseudo-intellectual nonsense. After all, only an incredibly enlightened smart person with “good genes” could be so wealthy and successful in the eyes of much of the self-unaware rich. [1] [1] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-18043-001 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-18043-001