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"If that is the case, it would probably involve continued pillorying of big-tech firms, especially Google, which Mr Thiel has long accused of being a monopoly."

"If that is the case, it would probably involve continued pillorying of big-tech firms, especially Google, which Mr Thiel has long accused of being a monopoly." He accuses it of being a monopoly but AFAIK he's not for anti-trust and he views these monopolies somewhat positively.

cblconfederate 5y ago
His view of capitalism is as a machine that, through competition, picks its monopolies. Ironically he s against regulation , but it is through regulations that those monopolies entrench their dominance forever. in any case he hasn't invented any new form of capitalism, he makes some blunt conclusions that make people uncomfortable. Even more ironically, his book was a major success in communist China. It seems the chinese took it seriously, learned to instrumentalize capitalism to build their own monopolies, but then disenfranchised the capitalists.
- deleted 5y ago
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davesque 5y ago
Sure, but like Trump, it seems pretty clear that Mr. Thiel deploys rhetoric mostly just to get attention and not to make a consistent argument. He and the people like him live for the moment, always trying to exert influence but ultimately having no other goal than simply to win.
- Applejinx 5y ago
  Within their context, that's all that exists. As such, what other goal could there possibly be? If they can kill you, to them that counts as an existence proof of their ethic… and a failure-to-exist-proof of both you and whatever competing ethic you had. I'm reminded of Prisoner's Dilemma tournaments, and times when TitForTat tended to win out over much more hostile and ruthless strategies. In situations like this I like to look to modeling and experimentation for axioms: like the easily demonstrated proof that discontinuities in simple exchange produce inequities that are not in any way representative of merit: the natural state is not for things to average out, given some simple and natural conditions the natural state is for some unfit competitors to become vastly over-rewarded relative to their merit. Thus disproving certain assumptions that wealth in any way signals merit in any sense.

cblconfederate 5y ago

His view of capitalism is as a machine that, through competition, picks its monopolies. Ironically he s against regulation , but it is through regulations that those monopolies entrench their dominance forever. in any case he hasn't invented any new form of capitalism, he makes some blunt conclusions that make people uncomfortable. Even more ironically, his book was a major success in communist China. It seems the chinese took it seriously, learned to instrumentalize capitalism to build their own monopolies, but then disenfranchised the capitalists.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

davesque 5y ago

Sure, but like Trump, it seems pretty clear that Mr. Thiel deploys rhetoric mostly just to get attention and not to make a consistent argument. He and the people like him live for the moment, always trying to exert influence but ultimately having no other goal than simply to win.

Applejinx 5y ago
Within their context, that's all that exists. As such, what other goal could there possibly be? If they can kill you, to them that counts as an existence proof of their ethic… and a failure-to-exist-proof of both you and whatever competing ethic you had. I'm reminded of Prisoner's Dilemma tournaments, and times when TitForTat tended to win out over much more hostile and ruthless strategies. In situations like this I like to look to modeling and experimentation for axioms: like the easily demonstrated proof that discontinuities in simple exchange produce inequities that are not in any way representative of merit: the natural state is not for things to average out, given some simple and natural conditions the natural state is for some unfit competitors to become vastly over-rewarded relative to their merit. Thus disproving certain assumptions that wealth in any way signals merit in any sense.