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I think Thiel is worth listening to, but sometimes his contrarianism flips into derangement: > [Peter Robinson: In 2016, how many professors at the top five la

I think Thiel is worth listening to, but sometimes his contrarianism flips into derangement: > [Peter Robinson: In 2016, how many professors at the top five law schools endorsed Donald Trump?] [2] Zero. And the law school example's interesting because you would think it's one where if you took the, a lot of academic fields are more internal to academia, but law is one that cashes out in a governmental political context, and taking a contrarian position in theory is quite valuable. If you're a tenured law professor at Harvard, and you're the only law professor at a top law school to endorse Trump, I don't know, I think there would be like a 50% chance you would've gotten nominated to the Supreme Court or something like that. So it seems like it's the sort of thing where the contrarian thing would be quite valuable, and then if nobody takes that bet, I mean, wow, there must be some unbelievable enforcement mechanisms, and it's sort of like a gentle version of North Korea. What's more likely: Harvard law professors don't endorse Trump because he's unfit to lead a parade, or they are subject to (gentle) totalitarian barbarism?

lgessler 6y ago
Yeah, came here to say this too. There are much more convincing ways of making this point.
briefcomment 6y ago
I would say the second. Trump supporters in tech companies are certainly subject to (gentle) totalitarian barbarism. I know some people who support Trump privately who would never defend Trump in a work setting. It's simply not worth losing your job over. I would assume it's worse in academia.
rsynnott 6y ago
> Harvard law professors don't endorse Trump because he's unfit to lead a parade Even if you take a more cynical view, and assume that some of them will be selfish, the sort of person who's a tenured law professor at a top university probably values the opinions of their colleagues and peers. And if one of them were to do this, and they got nominated to the supreme court, their peers would see them (correctly) as sellouts, as would, likely, history. There's nothing sinister here; law professors didn't do it because either (a) they were responsible or (b) they have too much self-respect/self-regard (depending on level of cynicism). Thiel's thesis would only really work if becoming a Supreme Court justice was some sort of all-overriding imperative for lawyers, like Sauron looking for rings.
jbob2000 6y ago
I think his point is that, Trump provided the opportunity for these law professors to get their "dream job" (a seat on the supreme court, your name is in the history books for centuries). And yet, NONE of them took this up. His point is that the groupthink at Harvard is so strong that people will actively demolish their dreams to stay within the group.
- notahacker 6y ago
  Thiel's insistence that Harvard law professors ought to have put [in this instance highly unlikely] personal advancement opportunities ahead of their actual beliefs about the fitness of a presidential candidate for office when deciding whether to make an endorsement says much about Thiel and little about groupthink at Harvard.
- IOT_Apprentice 6y ago
  So why didn't Trump offer a seat to Alan Dershowitz, Captain Underpants himself? As he went to Harvard and was a professor there. So it is groupthink over morality? Quite the hot take.
spaced-out 6y ago
>I think there would be like a 50% chance you would've gotten nominated to the Supreme Court or something like that. Anyone who follows politics knows the only way you're getting nominated to the Supreme Court by a Republican president is if you've been doing the Heritage Foundation, Values Voters circuit. There's no way they're going to pick some Harvard professor over someone who's been hobnobbing donors for decades.

lgessler 6y ago

Yeah, came here to say this too. There are much more convincing ways of making this point.

briefcomment 6y ago

I would say the second. Trump supporters in tech companies are certainly subject to (gentle) totalitarian barbarism. I know some people who support Trump privately who would never defend Trump in a work setting. It's simply not worth losing your job over. I would assume it's worse in academia.

rsynnott 6y ago

> Harvard law professors don't endorse Trump because he's unfit to lead a parade Even if you take a more cynical view, and assume that some of them will be selfish, the sort of person who's a tenured law professor at a top university probably values the opinions of their colleagues and peers. And if one of them were to do this, and they got nominated to the supreme court, their peers would see them (correctly) as sellouts, as would, likely, history. There's nothing sinister here; law professors didn't do it because either (a) they were responsible or (b) they have too much self-respect/self-regard (depending on level of cynicism). Thiel's thesis would only really work if becoming a Supreme Court justice was some sort of all-overriding imperative for lawyers, like Sauron looking for rings.

jbob2000 6y ago

I think his point is that, Trump provided the opportunity for these law professors to get their "dream job" (a seat on the supreme court, your name is in the history books for centuries). And yet, NONE of them took this up. His point is that the groupthink at Harvard is so strong that people will actively demolish their dreams to stay within the group.

notahacker 6y ago
Thiel's insistence that Harvard law professors ought to have put [in this instance highly unlikely] personal advancement opportunities ahead of their actual beliefs about the fitness of a presidential candidate for office when deciding whether to make an endorsement says much about Thiel and little about groupthink at Harvard.
IOT_Apprentice 6y ago
So why didn't Trump offer a seat to Alan Dershowitz, Captain Underpants himself? As he went to Harvard and was a professor there. So it is groupthink over morality? Quite the hot take.

spaced-out 6y ago

>I think there would be like a 50% chance you would've gotten nominated to the Supreme Court or something like that. Anyone who follows politics knows the only way you're getting nominated to the Supreme Court by a Republican president is if you've been doing the Heritage Foundation, Values Voters circuit. There's no way they're going to pick some Harvard professor over someone who's been hobnobbing donors for decades.