7 ms·

The Peter Thiel Paradox

49 points by VieEnCode 5y ago

api 5y ago
I keep seeing Thiel called a libertarian. He may have been at one time but I get the sense he has converted to national conservatism or perhaps even more extreme views such as neoreaction. Those are not libertarian views at all. If that were the case he would not be alone. There has been a mass conversion of libertarians to those sorts of views in the 20-teens. Many others converted to the far left. It feels as if libertarianism is dead. I don’t really know. I’m just wondering if he still calls himself that.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  I’ve stopped using the label “libertarian” and started using “anarchist” to mean the same thing.
  - cristoperb 5y ago
    "Anarchist," which implies a form of libertarian socialism, would be even more confusing if applied to Thiel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
  - doctor_eval 5y ago
    As I understand the taxonomy, Libertarians are more closely aligned with anarcho-capitalists, to the point where I tend to consider them equivalent. Anarcho-capitalists believe in the primacy of property rights above all else. It is a system which explicitly requires an enforcement mechanism - such as, ideally, a private police system, with the right to use force against citizens to protect the rights of property holders. Anarchism is in general a utopian (but IMO idealistic, and intrinsically unstable) system where no person has authority over any other. There can be no police force because everyone has effectively the same rights. (There are lots of variations on this general theme). Anarchism has a bad reputation (the reasons for this are in themselves interesting) but by definition it is anti-authoritarian. I personally think that most libertarians I’ve met are actually anarcho-capitalists, and not anarchists. Despite sounding alike, the two systems could hardly be more different.
- xibalba 5y ago
  > perhaps even more extreme views such as neoreaction Evidence? I have and listened to Thiel extensively and see no signs of neoreaction. In fact, he has been pretty consistent in his claims of pursuing a less violent future.
  - anon9384929 5y ago
    I think to the posters point, his words and actions don’t line up. If he wants a less violent future, he shouldn’t bankroll those advocating for, condoning, or downplaying violence such as zip ties and gallows at the Capitol.
    - xibalba 5y ago
      Whether you realize it or not, your oblique approach is undermining your claims. What is your claim, specifically? Who did Thiel bankroll? For how much? Why? What did they do with respect to Jan 6?
      - anon9384929 5y ago
        I mean, first of all, Trump himself??? Blake Masters? Kris Kobach? My claim is exactly what I stated. These people, including Thiel, support politicians who support, condone, or downplay violence that has already happened. Whether you realize it or not, trying to get intellectual about simple things is undermining the doubt you’re trying to cast.
      - exogeny 5y ago
        Thiel is heavily behind his protege, Blake Masters. Representative sample: "Saving Arizona PAC, the Thiel-funded effort that has already spent nearly $1.7 million in Arizona, has launched ads attacking state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Masters' principal GOP opponent, for rejecting Trump's lie that voter fraud cost him the election. "Mark Brnovich says President Trump is wrong on voter fraud. Really? Brnovich failed to convene a grand jury, certified Biden as president. Now he's nowhere to be found, making excuses … instead of standing with our president," the ad says." [0] If you can't find evidence of Thiel's direct or by association diminishing of January 6th, then you're either not looking in good faith or you don't know how to use a computer. 0: https://www.salon.com/2021/10/15/peter-thiel-bets-on-the-far-right-tech-tycoon-spending-millions-to-bankroll-trump-wing-of/ https://www.salon.com/2021/10/15/peter-thiel-bets-on-the-far...
- noduerme 5y ago
  A lot of people I know who call themselves libertarians - not all, but the loudest - are what I would describe as opportunistic freedom-warriors when it suits their purposes. Pointing out to them the degree to which their safety and prosperity is being safeguarded by the government they think unnecessary just results in cognitive dissonance for them: They can't accept it emotionally. So they live in a fantasy where they believe they ultimately control every aspect of their own destiny, and where everyone else must be a fool, but their political views are not much more than a series of post-justifications for being fairly lousy human beings.
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    The loudest voices for an ideology are usually a shitshow, especially online. Libertarians also have the specific problem that we attract a disproportionate number of people who hate everything...
- czbond 5y ago
  I've seen the term mis-characterized, for lack of a better word. I've seen European libertarian, eastern (US) libertarian, southern (US) libertarian people describe their beliefs all in vastly different ways. Some I'd characterize as heavily socialist, some heavily.... right, some heavily left, some just as a "alternative" to two main US parties.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Isn't the quintessential libertarian belief some flavor of "I believe you deserve the maximum possible freedom to act and speak"? In which case it seems entirely possible to be a libertarian and have strong personal beliefs of wildly different flavors.
    - api 5y ago
      I think the decline of libertarian attitudes is part of why things are so polarized, for exactly that reason. If we can live and let live it’s okay if we think differently. If we are arguing over what everyone must be forced to do, disagreement becomes an actual threat.
    - FactolSarin 5y ago
      I don't know what the textbook definition is, but I think libertarianism (in the US, in my experience) is more about being against government regulation. Even if regulation would increase freedom (for, say, a minority group) libertarians will tend to be against it.
      - api 5y ago
        It depends. Libertarians of the more Randian school tend toward the view that there are only individual rights, not “states rights” and such. If the Fed intervenes to support individual rights that is justified. Local tyranny is not superior to Federal tyranny.
    - czbond 5y ago
      Yeah - could be! I had never thought of it that way.
exogeny 5y ago
Thiel is one of the most vicious, petty hypocrites around. Believes fiercely in free speech, but bankrolls an entire lawsuit to get revenge on a press publication that outs him. Goes on and on about being a libertarian but his company, Palantir, is just about the worst abuser of privacy one can imagine, and then uses his connections with Trump to pardon Levandowski. Espouses a distinctly anti-government, pro-corporate fantasy where the best in business are ostensibly the smartest and most viable leaders, yet whole-heartedly backs Trump, perhaps the least successful businessman one can name, even today and bankrolls the next wave of populist right-wing candidates who take the approach to the lowest possible denominators. Screw him. I wouldn't take funding from any firm he's associated with.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  The least successful businessman (we use business person these days) is a weak point because Hilary isn't a business person. The fact that we can name Trump means he is more successful compared to most. Libertarian doesn't mean privacy. Lawsuits are part of his speech.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Politics is business by other means.
  - anon9384929 5y ago
    The Libertarian platform literally has a section saying, “Libertarians advocate individual privacy and government transparency.” I am not sure where you got the confidence that it does not mean this, can you elaborate?
- defterGoose 5y ago
  Amen. Not a single untruth there.
anon9384929 5y ago
You see this a lot with hedge fund guys too. They make a boatload of money doing a very specific thing (thiel : software :: griffin : securities trading) and think their ability in that thing gives them abilities in most other things. Stepping back it’s fairly obvious the opposite is true. They got so good at that thing by focusing on it. Focusing on something, by definition, means not paying attention to other things. You see where this goes…
- gunapologist99 5y ago
  You may want to research the subject of this thesis a tiny bit more, because Thiel is clearly not limited to one area.
  - anon9384929 5y ago
    I’ve edited this to remove the snark from my initial post where I mentioned something about being much closer to the people in question than you might guess, trying to keep conversation high quality. What do you recommend I research?
    - gunapologist99 5y ago
      Just that Thiel is not a "software guy". He's a lawyer and economist, a National Master chess player, and a (multiple) startup founder (PayPal, Palintir, etc), investor (first outside investor in Facebook). And he is actually also a "hedge fund guy", but he does not seem to be a software guy of any sort. As far as I can tell from a very great distance, he is highly intelligent and has been demonstrably successful across multiple domains of expertise, and certainly smarter than your previous remark would seem to imply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel EDIT: just saw your kind response. Perhaps just read through the above wikipedia page. He's obviously a very polarizing individual, but whether you personally like or hate his politics, it seems pretty clear that he's a pretty brilliant person -- as smart as Reid Hoffman on the other side of the aisle (whom he is good friends with.) It seems wise to be friends with (and have friendly debates with) people who disagree with you, especially if they are very smart. Iron sharpens iron. Thanks for elevating the level of discourse!
pphysch 5y ago
Thiel thinks that America needs more demagogues to unite Americans in a manufactured hatred of the Chinese et al. So he's funding some of those demagogues right now. In reality, many of America's problems are due to the unfettering of ruthless & selfish oligarchs -- like himself -- who don't have the foggiest sense of "collective social good". A paradox indeed. It's hard to not view his political activity as mere scapegoating while he continues to make billions in the most depraved of manners (e.g. Palantir).
- ihsw 5y ago
  [dead]
- atlasunshrugged 5y ago
  On the face of it I'm inclined to agree, but how do you know that's what is causing America's ills? Maybe America does need a common enemy; maybe it should be one that is committing genocide right now.
  - gnramires 5y ago
    Or maybe another great war could destroy civilization, and it's best not to play around it irresponsibly. Most of our ills are coordination failures. I believe solutions are complex, because society is growing more complex. But we also need to find ways to reinvent ourselves so that we won't fall prey to the various instabilities we are subject to -- political instabilities, environmental instabilities, even AI safety instabilities. What is needed is a clear vision of our shared goal: to maximize the well being of all conscious creatures. As long as most of our system design is not aligned with that, we will be in significant danger. (To be honest, just existing in the long term is just so darn difficult -- something few people realize -- that even with such systems in place there are no guarantees)
    - nine_k 5y ago
      Did you notice how the US never had a war with USSR (beside proxy wars, like Afghanistan in 1980s), but still defeated it economically? Of course a war is not a great idea, and is a device of last resort. But who are you friends with, and who do you depend on economically, plays a very large role on which regimes last, and which get changed, one way or another.
thundergolfer 5y ago
To comment on the podcast itself, I found it decently interesting but unsatisfying because the guest didn't go deeper into Thiel's thinking and ecosystem. As someone who is interested enough in Thiel to buy a Rene Girard book, too much of this episode is 'intro' stuff.
gameswithgo 5y ago
Peter Thiel is a man who got lucky in the dotcom boom, expanded that fortune by merely having no shame and starting companies to spy on us for governments, laments that women get to vote, funded Trump, is now funding people to encourage war with China, bought land in New Zealand to escape to after America is ruined by himself. That HN is so fascinated by him is so disappointing. The man represents the worst of humanity in every way, we should be allied against people like him.
- thundergolfer 5y ago
  > That HN is so fascinated by him is so disappointing. The man represents the worst of humanity in every way, we should be allied against people like him. Agree with the second sentence, but I'm pretty interested in Thiel because he's one of the few, and maybe only, prominent tech billionaires who does not talk in PR-speak and pretend that capitalism is benevolent. His well known "competition is for losers" point exhibits how he candidly rejects capitalist articles of faith that are held and espoused by the dishonest and the stupid. > we should be allied against people like him. Oracle's Larry E is also a multi-billionaire Trump supporting right-winger, but he hides his malevolence and ideology, so there's little talk about him.
swamp_cypress 5y ago
He can say and do and present himself as this and that all he likes and everyone will run around hanging off his every word defending this and impugning that. He has money. Money is power. Power is money.
- klipt 5y ago
  > Money is power. Money is just one form of power, not the most powerful. Putin for example has way more power than any wealthy Russian oligarch. They have money but they will do anything to avoid getting on Putin's bad side.
  - Meandering 5y ago
    >> Money is power. > Money is just one form of power, not the most powerful. I've over thought this one a lot and happened on an anthropology book that confirmed my position: Power is the ability to influence or induce action. Money is a medium of exchange which acts as a mechanism to induce economic activity. Entertainment companies, media companies, and even social media influencers have the ability to manipulate perception which may induce action. Money is an odd beast in the landscape of power because it grants access to "API's" of power. Lobbying, media buys, hiring employees, and even purchasing portions of the economy(i.e. businesses). My point, and where I agree with you, is that money, in and of itself, is not power... it is a medium through which one can express power.
- superseeplus 5y ago
  He has also not been hesitant to use his money to shut down Gawker by bankrolling Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit. When it became public which claims would make Gawker’s insurance pay for the defense and damages, they specifically dropped those claims so that Gawker would be responsible for the damages themselves. This is an article from the NYT before they knew it was financed by Thiel: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/business/dealbook/gawker-founder-suspects-a-common-financer-behind-lawsuits.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/business/dealbook/gawker-...
yalogin 5y ago
I have a problem with calling him a libertarian, I would call him an opportunist in the same mould as shikreli who doesn’t seem to have any moral/ethical lines when trying to make money. That is what defines him more libertarianism.
marco_yolo 5y ago
im sure the belief that people "owe the state" has never led to most horrible atrocities in human history.

49 points by VieEnCode 5y ago

api 5y ago

I keep seeing Thiel called a libertarian. He may have been at one time but I get the sense he has converted to national conservatism or perhaps even more extreme views such as neoreaction. Those are not libertarian views at all. If that were the case he would not be alone. There has been a mass conversion of libertarians to those sorts of views in the 20-teens. Many others converted to the far left. It feels as if libertarianism is dead. I don’t really know. I’m just wondering if he still calls himself that.

wayoutthere 5y ago
I’ve stopped using the label “libertarian” and started using “anarchist” to mean the same thing.
- cristoperb 5y ago
  "Anarchist," which implies a form of libertarian socialism, would be even more confusing if applied to Thiel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
- doctor_eval 5y ago
  As I understand the taxonomy, Libertarians are more closely aligned with anarcho-capitalists, to the point where I tend to consider them equivalent. Anarcho-capitalists believe in the primacy of property rights above all else. It is a system which explicitly requires an enforcement mechanism - such as, ideally, a private police system, with the right to use force against citizens to protect the rights of property holders. Anarchism is in general a utopian (but IMO idealistic, and intrinsically unstable) system where no person has authority over any other. There can be no police force because everyone has effectively the same rights. (There are lots of variations on this general theme). Anarchism has a bad reputation (the reasons for this are in themselves interesting) but by definition it is anti-authoritarian. I personally think that most libertarians I’ve met are actually anarcho-capitalists, and not anarchists. Despite sounding alike, the two systems could hardly be more different.
xibalba 5y ago
> perhaps even more extreme views such as neoreaction Evidence? I have and listened to Thiel extensively and see no signs of neoreaction. In fact, he has been pretty consistent in his claims of pursuing a less violent future.
- anon9384929 5y ago
  I think to the posters point, his words and actions don’t line up. If he wants a less violent future, he shouldn’t bankroll those advocating for, condoning, or downplaying violence such as zip ties and gallows at the Capitol.
  - xibalba 5y ago
    Whether you realize it or not, your oblique approach is undermining your claims. What is your claim, specifically? Who did Thiel bankroll? For how much? Why? What did they do with respect to Jan 6?
    - anon9384929 5y ago
      I mean, first of all, Trump himself??? Blake Masters? Kris Kobach? My claim is exactly what I stated. These people, including Thiel, support politicians who support, condone, or downplay violence that has already happened. Whether you realize it or not, trying to get intellectual about simple things is undermining the doubt you’re trying to cast.
    - exogeny 5y ago
      Thiel is heavily behind his protege, Blake Masters. Representative sample: "Saving Arizona PAC, the Thiel-funded effort that has already spent nearly $1.7 million in Arizona, has launched ads attacking state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Masters' principal GOP opponent, for rejecting Trump's lie that voter fraud cost him the election. "Mark Brnovich says President Trump is wrong on voter fraud. Really? Brnovich failed to convene a grand jury, certified Biden as president. Now he's nowhere to be found, making excuses … instead of standing with our president," the ad says." [0] If you can't find evidence of Thiel's direct or by association diminishing of January 6th, then you're either not looking in good faith or you don't know how to use a computer. 0: https://www.salon.com/2021/10/15/peter-thiel-bets-on-the-far-right-tech-tycoon-spending-millions-to-bankroll-trump-wing-of/ https://www.salon.com/2021/10/15/peter-thiel-bets-on-the-far...
noduerme 5y ago
A lot of people I know who call themselves libertarians - not all, but the loudest - are what I would describe as opportunistic freedom-warriors when it suits their purposes. Pointing out to them the degree to which their safety and prosperity is being safeguarded by the government they think unnecessary just results in cognitive dissonance for them: They can't accept it emotionally. So they live in a fantasy where they believe they ultimately control every aspect of their own destiny, and where everyone else must be a fool, but their political views are not much more than a series of post-justifications for being fairly lousy human beings.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  The loudest voices for an ideology are usually a shitshow, especially online. Libertarians also have the specific problem that we attract a disproportionate number of people who hate everything...
czbond 5y ago
I've seen the term mis-characterized, for lack of a better word. I've seen European libertarian, eastern (US) libertarian, southern (US) libertarian people describe their beliefs all in vastly different ways. Some I'd characterize as heavily socialist, some heavily.... right, some heavily left, some just as a "alternative" to two main US parties.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Isn't the quintessential libertarian belief some flavor of "I believe you deserve the maximum possible freedom to act and speak"? In which case it seems entirely possible to be a libertarian and have strong personal beliefs of wildly different flavors.
  - api 5y ago
    I think the decline of libertarian attitudes is part of why things are so polarized, for exactly that reason. If we can live and let live it’s okay if we think differently. If we are arguing over what everyone must be forced to do, disagreement becomes an actual threat.
  - FactolSarin 5y ago
    I don't know what the textbook definition is, but I think libertarianism (in the US, in my experience) is more about being against government regulation. Even if regulation would increase freedom (for, say, a minority group) libertarians will tend to be against it.
    - api 5y ago
      It depends. Libertarians of the more Randian school tend toward the view that there are only individual rights, not “states rights” and such. If the Fed intervenes to support individual rights that is justified. Local tyranny is not superior to Federal tyranny.
  - czbond 5y ago
    Yeah - could be! I had never thought of it that way.

exogeny 5y ago

Thiel is one of the most vicious, petty hypocrites around. Believes fiercely in free speech, but bankrolls an entire lawsuit to get revenge on a press publication that outs him. Goes on and on about being a libertarian but his company, Palantir, is just about the worst abuser of privacy one can imagine, and then uses his connections with Trump to pardon Levandowski. Espouses a distinctly anti-government, pro-corporate fantasy where the best in business are ostensibly the smartest and most viable leaders, yet whole-heartedly backs Trump, perhaps the least successful businessman one can name, even today and bankrolls the next wave of populist right-wing candidates who take the approach to the lowest possible denominators. Screw him. I wouldn't take funding from any firm he's associated with.

ipaddr 5y ago
The least successful businessman (we use business person these days) is a weak point because Hilary isn't a business person. The fact that we can name Trump means he is more successful compared to most. Libertarian doesn't mean privacy. Lawsuits are part of his speech.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Politics is business by other means.
- anon9384929 5y ago
  The Libertarian platform literally has a section saying, “Libertarians advocate individual privacy and government transparency.” I am not sure where you got the confidence that it does not mean this, can you elaborate?
defterGoose 5y ago
Amen. Not a single untruth there.

anon9384929 5y ago

You see this a lot with hedge fund guys too. They make a boatload of money doing a very specific thing (thiel : software :: griffin : securities trading) and think their ability in that thing gives them abilities in most other things. Stepping back it’s fairly obvious the opposite is true. They got so good at that thing by focusing on it. Focusing on something, by definition, means not paying attention to other things. You see where this goes…

gunapologist99 5y ago
You may want to research the subject of this thesis a tiny bit more, because Thiel is clearly not limited to one area.
- anon9384929 5y ago
  I’ve edited this to remove the snark from my initial post where I mentioned something about being much closer to the people in question than you might guess, trying to keep conversation high quality. What do you recommend I research?
  - gunapologist99 5y ago
    Just that Thiel is not a "software guy". He's a lawyer and economist, a National Master chess player, and a (multiple) startup founder (PayPal, Palintir, etc), investor (first outside investor in Facebook). And he is actually also a "hedge fund guy", but he does not seem to be a software guy of any sort. As far as I can tell from a very great distance, he is highly intelligent and has been demonstrably successful across multiple domains of expertise, and certainly smarter than your previous remark would seem to imply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel EDIT: just saw your kind response. Perhaps just read through the above wikipedia page. He's obviously a very polarizing individual, but whether you personally like or hate his politics, it seems pretty clear that he's a pretty brilliant person -- as smart as Reid Hoffman on the other side of the aisle (whom he is good friends with.) It seems wise to be friends with (and have friendly debates with) people who disagree with you, especially if they are very smart. Iron sharpens iron. Thanks for elevating the level of discourse!

pphysch 5y ago

Thiel thinks that America needs more demagogues to unite Americans in a manufactured hatred of the Chinese et al. So he's funding some of those demagogues right now. In reality, many of America's problems are due to the unfettering of ruthless & selfish oligarchs -- like himself -- who don't have the foggiest sense of "collective social good". A paradox indeed. It's hard to not view his political activity as mere scapegoating while he continues to make billions in the most depraved of manners (e.g. Palantir).

ihsw 5y ago
[dead]
atlasunshrugged 5y ago
On the face of it I'm inclined to agree, but how do you know that's what is causing America's ills? Maybe America does need a common enemy; maybe it should be one that is committing genocide right now.
- gnramires 5y ago
  Or maybe another great war could destroy civilization, and it's best not to play around it irresponsibly. Most of our ills are coordination failures. I believe solutions are complex, because society is growing more complex. But we also need to find ways to reinvent ourselves so that we won't fall prey to the various instabilities we are subject to -- political instabilities, environmental instabilities, even AI safety instabilities. What is needed is a clear vision of our shared goal: to maximize the well being of all conscious creatures. As long as most of our system design is not aligned with that, we will be in significant danger. (To be honest, just existing in the long term is just so darn difficult -- something few people realize -- that even with such systems in place there are no guarantees)
  - nine_k 5y ago
    Did you notice how the US never had a war with USSR (beside proxy wars, like Afghanistan in 1980s), but still defeated it economically? Of course a war is not a great idea, and is a device of last resort. But who are you friends with, and who do you depend on economically, plays a very large role on which regimes last, and which get changed, one way or another.

thundergolfer 5y ago

To comment on the podcast itself, I found it decently interesting but unsatisfying because the guest didn't go deeper into Thiel's thinking and ecosystem. As someone who is interested enough in Thiel to buy a Rene Girard book, too much of this episode is 'intro' stuff.

gameswithgo 5y ago

Peter Thiel is a man who got lucky in the dotcom boom, expanded that fortune by merely having no shame and starting companies to spy on us for governments, laments that women get to vote, funded Trump, is now funding people to encourage war with China, bought land in New Zealand to escape to after America is ruined by himself. That HN is so fascinated by him is so disappointing. The man represents the worst of humanity in every way, we should be allied against people like him.

thundergolfer 5y ago
> That HN is so fascinated by him is so disappointing. The man represents the worst of humanity in every way, we should be allied against people like him. Agree with the second sentence, but I'm pretty interested in Thiel because he's one of the few, and maybe only, prominent tech billionaires who does not talk in PR-speak and pretend that capitalism is benevolent. His well known "competition is for losers" point exhibits how he candidly rejects capitalist articles of faith that are held and espoused by the dishonest and the stupid. > we should be allied against people like him. Oracle's Larry E is also a multi-billionaire Trump supporting right-winger, but he hides his malevolence and ideology, so there's little talk about him.

swamp_cypress 5y ago

He can say and do and present himself as this and that all he likes and everyone will run around hanging off his every word defending this and impugning that. He has money. Money is power. Power is money.

klipt 5y ago
> Money is power. Money is just one form of power, not the most powerful. Putin for example has way more power than any wealthy Russian oligarch. They have money but they will do anything to avoid getting on Putin's bad side.
- Meandering 5y ago
  >> Money is power. > Money is just one form of power, not the most powerful. I've over thought this one a lot and happened on an anthropology book that confirmed my position: Power is the ability to influence or induce action. Money is a medium of exchange which acts as a mechanism to induce economic activity. Entertainment companies, media companies, and even social media influencers have the ability to manipulate perception which may induce action. Money is an odd beast in the landscape of power because it grants access to "API's" of power. Lobbying, media buys, hiring employees, and even purchasing portions of the economy(i.e. businesses). My point, and where I agree with you, is that money, in and of itself, is not power... it is a medium through which one can express power.
superseeplus 5y ago
He has also not been hesitant to use his money to shut down Gawker by bankrolling Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit. When it became public which claims would make Gawker’s insurance pay for the defense and damages, they specifically dropped those claims so that Gawker would be responsible for the damages themselves. This is an article from the NYT before they knew it was financed by Thiel: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/business/dealbook/gawker-founder-suspects-a-common-financer-behind-lawsuits.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/business/dealbook/gawker-...

yalogin 5y ago

I have a problem with calling him a libertarian, I would call him an opportunist in the same mould as shikreli who doesn’t seem to have any moral/ethical lines when trying to make money. That is what defines him more libertarianism.

marco_yolo 5y ago

im sure the belief that people "owe the state" has never led to most horrible atrocities in human history.