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Surprised by Doctrow's flinged claim that Peter Thiel advocates against women voting.. seems absurd and well, didn't stand a quick sanity check: https://mobile

Surprised by Doctrow's flinged claim that Peter Thiel advocates against women voting.. seems absurd and well, didn't stand a quick sanity check: https://mobile.twitter.com/juliagalef/status/1054898254649802752?lang=de https://mobile.twitter.com/juliagalef/status/105489825464980... Edit: Thanks for the responses.. made me go read more. Here's the source article for his original quote: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/ https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio... And apparently he got a lot of flack for that comment on voting and so replied a couple weeks later: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/05/01/peter-thiel/suffrage-isnt-danger-other-rights-are/ https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/05/01/peter-thiel/suffrage... "It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better." That was directly linked from the original article, and happened over a decade ago. That's enough for me; Doctrow seems either to be parroting a falsehood or simply incorrect.

vanusa 5y ago
Oh sure, he's not "against" women voting. He just says that their doing so is bad for democracy. The point is - Thiel is crank, and if needs to sugarcoat the true import of what he's really saying: "We'd all be better off if women's suffrage never happened" -- that's just Thiel being Thiel.
- ifyoubuildit 5y ago
  Maybe you're aware of more than just the linked tweet and that's why I'm not seeing what you're seeing. Some reasonable interpretations of that quote: 1) We would be more capitalist (whatever that means) if welfare beneficiaries and women were not able to vote. 2) Libertarian initiatives would succeed more often. Neither of those seem to me to obviously translate to "We'd all be better off if women's suffrage never happened". For one thing, the quote seems to be missing anything that says those groups shouldn't be voting. But again, I'm only looking at the words on the page.
  - vanusa 5y ago
    This is of course exactly what Thiel, rhetorical genius that he is, wants you do to: perform a sufficient number of mental backflips and other cognitive gymnastics as necessary to obfuscate the true import of what he's plainly saying. Neither of those seem to me to obviously translate to "We'd all be better off if women's suffrage never happened". That's because I'm starting with what he said. Whereas it seems you're starting with what you would have preferred he had said.
    - ifyoubuildit 5y ago
      So I guess that's where I'm limited here. Unlike you, I have no idea what Thiel wants me to do. I also have no preference as to what some billionaire that I'll never meet says. I just read the words on the page and didn't attempt to fill in any blanks.
      - Apocryphon 5y ago
        Thiel doesn't need you to actually do anything, he just wants to plant the seed of the idea that "women's suffrage is bad for western democracy" in your head, and let that germinate into something in support of whatever worldview he's working for.
        vanusa 5y ago
        And if he can do so without you thinking that's what he's doing in -- so much the better. This is after all the very mark of a skilled rhetorician.
        ifyoubuildit 5y ago
        Well if that's what he was trying to do, he failed. I didn't believe that women's suffrage is bad for western democracy, and no more so after reading that quote. I read that libertarianism has failed to speak to women voters and welfare participants ("two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians").
- prionassembly 5y ago
  What he seems to be saying is that it was bad for democracy back then. Maybe it would be terrible if Napoleon had access to nuclear weapons in the early 1800s. Am I saying we should have let the Rape of Nanking go on indefinitely?
margalabargala 5y ago
The reason that this keeps getting repeated is that it's a not-unreasonable summary/digestion of Peter Thiel's position, though you're correct that it's not precisely what he's saying. Reading that quote by him in context, Peter Thiel's nuanced stance is more along the lines of "The extension of voting rights to women has likely resulted in an America that I think is worse/less preferable to the one that would probably exist if women were not allowed to vote". So no, he hasn't advocated for taking away the vote from women in as many words, he just makes it known that he wishes they had never been allowed to do so. One can reasonably see how these positions are similar enough that some people have editorialized slightly. Especially since, given these views, it seems also reasonable to suppose that were the question of women voting to be put forth once more, he would probably vote against.
- prionassembly 5y ago
  This is a common malicious misrepresentation of conservative commentary in general: even a slightly counter-progressive reading of history (maybe things haven't just gotten better and better in every possible way) is often painted as wanting to turn back the clock in the most extreme and extremely plausible of ways. Search old HN to see discussion about Curtis Yarvin to see this.
  - pnutjam 5y ago
    No, it's common for conservatives to hide behind half-truths and misdirection.
    - prionassembly 5y ago
      Now, be nice.
  - margalabargala 5y ago
    I think this is a reasonable representation, though. The idea behind voting is to say "I think this way is the best way", right? So if Thiel is saying "that way was not the best way", then presumably if the issue came to a vote today, he would vote against. It's true that he's not advocating for turning back the clock, but I think it's fair to say he wants to turn back the clock, in that he has expressed his opinion that he would prefer to live in a world where it were so.
robocat 5y ago
Arguing about this is definitely off-topic. A previous thread, flagged and detached: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12926975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12926975

vanusa 5y ago

Oh sure, he's not "against" women voting. He just says that their doing so is bad for democracy. The point is - Thiel is crank, and if needs to sugarcoat the true import of what he's really saying: "We'd all be better off if women's suffrage never happened" -- that's just Thiel being Thiel.

ifyoubuildit 5y ago
Maybe you're aware of more than just the linked tweet and that's why I'm not seeing what you're seeing. Some reasonable interpretations of that quote: 1) We would be more capitalist (whatever that means) if welfare beneficiaries and women were not able to vote. 2) Libertarian initiatives would succeed more often. Neither of those seem to me to obviously translate to "We'd all be better off if women's suffrage never happened". For one thing, the quote seems to be missing anything that says those groups shouldn't be voting. But again, I'm only looking at the words on the page.
- vanusa 5y ago
  This is of course exactly what Thiel, rhetorical genius that he is, wants you do to: perform a sufficient number of mental backflips and other cognitive gymnastics as necessary to obfuscate the true import of what he's plainly saying. Neither of those seem to me to obviously translate to "We'd all be better off if women's suffrage never happened". That's because I'm starting with what he said. Whereas it seems you're starting with what you would have preferred he had said.
  - ifyoubuildit 5y ago
    So I guess that's where I'm limited here. Unlike you, I have no idea what Thiel wants me to do. I also have no preference as to what some billionaire that I'll never meet says. I just read the words on the page and didn't attempt to fill in any blanks.
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      Thiel doesn't need you to actually do anything, he just wants to plant the seed of the idea that "women's suffrage is bad for western democracy" in your head, and let that germinate into something in support of whatever worldview he's working for.
      - vanusa 5y ago
        And if he can do so without you thinking that's what he's doing in -- so much the better. This is after all the very mark of a skilled rhetorician.
      - ifyoubuildit 5y ago
        Well if that's what he was trying to do, he failed. I didn't believe that women's suffrage is bad for western democracy, and no more so after reading that quote. I read that libertarianism has failed to speak to women voters and welfare participants ("two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians").
prionassembly 5y ago
What he seems to be saying is that it was bad for democracy back then. Maybe it would be terrible if Napoleon had access to nuclear weapons in the early 1800s. Am I saying we should have let the Rape of Nanking go on indefinitely?

margalabargala 5y ago

The reason that this keeps getting repeated is that it's a not-unreasonable summary/digestion of Peter Thiel's position, though you're correct that it's not precisely what he's saying. Reading that quote by him in context, Peter Thiel's nuanced stance is more along the lines of "The extension of voting rights to women has likely resulted in an America that I think is worse/less preferable to the one that would probably exist if women were not allowed to vote". So no, he hasn't advocated for taking away the vote from women in as many words, he just makes it known that he wishes they had never been allowed to do so. One can reasonably see how these positions are similar enough that some people have editorialized slightly. Especially since, given these views, it seems also reasonable to suppose that were the question of women voting to be put forth once more, he would probably vote against.

prionassembly 5y ago
This is a common malicious misrepresentation of conservative commentary in general: even a slightly counter-progressive reading of history (maybe things haven't just gotten better and better in every possible way) is often painted as wanting to turn back the clock in the most extreme and extremely plausible of ways. Search old HN to see discussion about Curtis Yarvin to see this.
- pnutjam 5y ago
  No, it's common for conservatives to hide behind half-truths and misdirection.
  - prionassembly 5y ago
    Now, be nice.
- margalabargala 5y ago
  I think this is a reasonable representation, though. The idea behind voting is to say "I think this way is the best way", right? So if Thiel is saying "that way was not the best way", then presumably if the issue came to a vote today, he would vote against. It's true that he's not advocating for turning back the clock, but I think it's fair to say he wants to turn back the clock, in that he has expressed his opinion that he would prefer to live in a world where it were so.

robocat 5y ago

Arguing about this is definitely off-topic. A previous thread, flagged and detached: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12926975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12926975