7 ms·

Peter Thiel helped build big tech. Now he wants to tear it all down

31 points by fortran77 4y ago

fortran77 4y ago
Cached: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wlJHgNbQI18J:https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/19/peter-thiel-facebook-new-right/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wlJHgN...
seydor 4y ago
Thiel was an early believer that democracy is incompatible with freedom. And popular social media proved it even more right by making people believe that what's popular is truth, and then manipulating what s popular. It was a mistake from the start to believe in it. I hope he gets back on his libertarian roots and quits changing the world through democracy.
- fny 4y ago
  Thiel actively manipulates these same channels for his benefit. If you think he wasn't selling into the bitcoin pump all of last year that he helped provoke, you're incredibly naive. Much in the same way Musk pumped his own stock and sold (along with his brother) at the top. Thiel has no principles. He is an empire builder. His goal is to protect his wealth and build it through whatever means possible. The writing is on the wall for big tech, and he has changed his tune accordingly.
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    > Thiel actively manipulates these same channels for his benefit. That's what GP is saying...
  - bko 4y ago
    How was Thiel pumping bitcoin and manipulating social media channels? He has no social media presence at all. I saw one speech at a Bitcoin conference that no one else really watched and I figured he liked the tech due to his politics. But he wasn't pumping it. > Much in the same way Musk pumped his own stock and sold (along with his brother) at the top. If he had a crystal ball about the future of the market and Tesla stock, why didn't he sell more? Seems like he left a lot of money on the table. > Thiel has no principles. He is an empire builder. His goal is to protect his wealth and build it through whatever means possible There are a lot of things you can say about Thiel but he's not all about protecting his wealth. He personally spent $10 million to fight Gawker for refusing a court order to take down an illegal sex tape of someone. He also suffered a huge reputational hit by supporting and funding Trump early on. He has principles, just ones that you may not agree with.
- anovikov 4y ago
  I agree with this thesis. Democracy is indeed, incompatible with freedom. Most of the human rights and freedoms we perceive to be essential today, only appeared because in the times when they were invented (late 18th century), technology and social structure ensured that only elites could use them (so "universal"-ness of these rights was a lie), or no one at all could use them for harm. When technology changed, we could see these liberties as harmful. Freedom to own and bear arms was OK in the times of muskets, they were too slow to reload to try a school shooting. Freedom of speech was OK when it was about freedom to print and distribute a pamphlet (which meant having cash, connection, and rare level of education = belonging to the elite). Now we have to either scrap democracy (resort to the kind of Putinism where police state ensures that there are no school shootings, and opinions of people do not matter thus making freedom of speech harmless), or scrap freedom, like in the Western Europe where the acceptable corridor of opinions and behaviour for expressing themselves without becoming outcasts is so narrow that no sort of public activity not sanctioned by the government appears possible. Or more likely, what's going on already will just get stronger: switch to a two-tiered world where will be large nations comprised mainly of brainwashed serfs, and smaller rich nations where elites will still enjoy all rights and freedoms - harmless because they are elites, and sustainable because they are fed by money plundered from the aforementioned large nations.
  - cyber_kinetist 4y ago
    I also agree that the two are incompatible, but in a different way: why don't we ditch the liberal concept of freedom and save democracy instead? From the Online Etymology Dictionary, "freedom": > Old English freodom "power of self-determination, state of free will; emancipation from slavery, deliverance;" see free (adj.) + -dom. > Meaning "exemption from arbitrary or despotic control, civil liberty" is from late 14c. > Meaning "possession of particular privileges" is from 1570s. Isn't it interesting that the definition of freedom has changed from escape from control, to control itself? This happened roughly around the time when the Enlightenment started and liberal thoughts were beginning to spread in Europe, which is also the time when ideas of private property and capitalism were starting to take shape. Take note that one of the most fundamental "freedoms" of liberalism which is private property, can only be enforced by the state with violence or threats of violence, usually done by the police or the army. So at this point freedom has become an oxymoron, since to be free one has to submit to total authority of the law. I think neoliberalism is just an extension of this contradiction - you are encouraged to participate "freely" in the free market, which is held by the global financial system which is backed by the dollar and consequently the military powers of the United States. No matter where you escape to, any economic activity has to be done through the hegemonic powers of the world, and losing access to it means doom for your country and your people (ex. Cuba). So I view Thiel's search for his ultimate ideal of freedom by ditching democracy is futile, since the liberal conception of freedom itself was already contradictory and impossible to achieve. He can only think of more totalitarian ways to enforce a "free" system upon the people (so probably they can do whatever they want, like you have already said). The problem is that believing in contradictions don't automatically make societies fall, as Deleuze has said: "No one has ever died from contradictions. And the more it breaks down, the more it schizophrenizes, the better it works, the American way.” So as you have described nicely in your last sentence, most people will continue to get fucked regardless, until we fucking do something about it. By the way, Graeber has written a lot about the subject of freedom in many of his books and papers (the most evident one being his last book "The Dawn of Everything" co-written by Wengrow.) I think you'll enjoy his works if you have some shared sympathies with Thiel's views of libertarianism, regardless of if you're labelled left/right in the current political climate. Graeber has once written about a topic Thiel was also interested in ("Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit": https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declini...), and they've also met together and had a debate about this topic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF0cz9OmCGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF0cz9OmCGw).
- walkhour 4y ago
  What's popular is truth for most people, since humans are herd animals, and being a contrarian can mean being marginalized. In the antebellum South slavery was morally right, and it required to be a true outlier to speak out against it. People didn't independently discover this morality, they just copied what's popular.
  - spiderice 4y ago
    You’re conflating truth and opinion. “Slavery is morally right” is an opinion (a shitty one), not a “truth”. Lying about objective truth is a much more egregious offense than pushing your shitty opinion, imo
    - walkhour 4y ago
      > You’re conflating truth and opinion This thread is discussing conflating popular opinions and truth.
  - yucky 4y ago
    >In the antebellum South slavery was morally right I don't think this is correct, abolitionism was a thing particularly within the most religious (read:moral) groups of people. Only a tiny fraction of southerners owned slaves, most estimates put that number at under 2% of the population, and there isn't much evidence that the owners of slaves even claimed to have the moral high ground, let alone the 98% of the population that didn't own slaves. That's not to say abolitionists saw all races as equal, and it also doesn't ignore those who tried to roll out the story of Ham to justify slavery, but there was no consensus on the morality of the institution even at its height. If there were and if it were considered the morally "right" thing to do then we would have seen far more people becoming slave owners, especially among the most religious. Slavery was essentially a business decision, not a moral one. And not a very good business decision either, even if you can look past the evil of it all.
    - Flozzin 4y ago
      Just want to call out your 2% of the population claim. While maybe it is, 'technically correct', it gives a false impression. Slaves were counted among the population, thus skewing the number. Also, wives/women would not be counted as owning slaves, even if their husbands did. Same could be said about their children. "The 1860 census shows that in the states that would soon secede from the Union, an average of more than 32 percent of white families owned enslaved people. Some states had far more slave owners (46 percent of families in South Carolina, 49 percent in Mississippi) while some had far fewer (20 percent of families in Arkansas)." (https://www.history.com/news/5-myths-about-slavery https://www.history.com/news/5-myths-about-slavery)
mark_l_watson 4y ago
I have mixed feelings about both Thiel and his “Zero to One” coauthor Blake Masters who is running for Senator in my state of Arizona. I really don’t like either of their politics, but I enjoyed reading their book twice and agree with them on a a few philosophical things.
- baybal2 4y ago
- bko 4y ago
  I too really enjoyed his book and speeches and similarly am not necessarily on board with a lot of his politics. I can't really square the reasoning though. I can't pinpoint the disconnect between their ideas and prescriptions. I feel the same way about Taleb. I read all his books, some more than once and they taught me a lot. But sometimes he just has ridiculous positions and behavior. But with him I attribute to being incredibly petty and thin-skinned. For instance Snowden pointed out a series of tweets where he called people imbeciles and other names and now he literally tweets every month about how he's a fraud, traitor and Russian stooge. Same happened with an author of a popular Bitcoin book for which Taleb wrote an introduction praising Bitcoin. Since then Taleb disagreed with the covid policy criticisms coming from the author and all of a sudden Bitcoin was a ponzi scheme. It's really sad
  - qqqwerty 4y ago
    The skills required to be a good capitalist are almost in direct opposition to the skills needed for good governance. Capitalism requires a certain degree of ruthlessness, a lot of risk taking, and maximizing efficiency. Politics (ideally) requires empathy, risk mitigation, and consensus building. It also doesn't help that Thiel is a bit of a troll when it comes to politics. When talking about business/startups he comes across as fairly reasonable and composed. But when it comes to politics his words and actions take on a more Trumpian tone. And this tone pre-dates Trump's influence on politics. For example his Stanford Review work was fairly troll-ish in nature.
    - 4y ago
ulu21 4y ago
I don't have a lot of sympathy for Thiel, however, going against threats for free speech in big tech platforms and "trying to tear it all down" are two quite different things. So the title is overly alarmistic IMHO. Greetings from Western Europe, we're I feel we still have better balance in both liberty and moderation.
- Covzire 4y ago
  Typical WP hit piece on someone who doesn't tow the Democratic party line.
AzzieElbab 4y ago
If I were an American I would settle for any democratic political power other than what they have now. The sheer display of corruption and incompetence is simply overwhelming.
boeingUH60 4y ago
I've always respected Thiel for his entrepreneurial prowess...But jeez, his politics are pretty insane (Note that I'm not American, but from a faraway land and nonetheless can sense this from my armchair). The guy seems like a maniac with an aim to get whatever he wants, however he wants, with no care for the external effects.
- feet 4y ago
  From someone in the US, yes he is insane. We have a large growing far right nationalist movement and its pretty sad
  - throwntoday 4y ago
    I'm curious, do you believe far right is the sad part or nationalism? I ask this because naturally I find both the far left and far right equally insane in their convictions (which never stand up to scrutiny). But being against nationalism is a separate issue and seems equally looney to me.
    - spywaregorilla 4y ago
      Both. Nationalism is not the same as patriotism. Patriotism is great. Nationalism breeds Ayn Rand insanity mixed with supremacist views.
      - throwntoday 4y ago
        I believe in putting the needs of my nation, and my countrymen above all else. Is that nationalism? I am not against helping others, but not while there is still a single American suffering. Is that a supremacist view? Basically, remember to put on your oxygen mask before helping others.
        jamithon 4y ago
        > but not while there is still a single American suffering As there will always be someone somewhere suffering, this just sounds like an excuse not to help others.
bwanab 4y ago
Basically, there was money to be made building it. And now there’s money to be made tearing it down.
syberiyxx 4y ago
syberiyxx 4y ago
FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
There's a little bit of an implication in the piece that Thiel's anti-China stance is bad. The implication is set up simply by juxtaposition with other more objectionable things. But, in isolation, it's reasonable. Like this: > Thiel began to espouse increasingly strong anti-China views, including the belief that U.S. tech companies were harboring Chinese spies. In 2019 he claimed that Google, a longtime target of Thiel’s attacks, was being “infiltrated” by Chinese intelligence and called the company “treasonous.” He later attacked Apple for relying on China for its supply chain. Like, Google probably does have CCP intelligence inside. And Apple's reliance on China is a problem. And, even though Google did originally have some Defense ties (especially via Eric Schmidt. Also connections to the Obama White House, and maybe to CIA (for Google Earth)), it absolutely has refused to work on Defense (project Maven; attempts to move Boston Dynamics out of Defense). Is he actually wrong here? I would hope that America's Democrats are not going to be to China as Germany's Socialists and Greens are to Russia. And I don't think they are in general; remember the Pacific Pivot was Obama's. Thiel can be right about this one thing.
GWBullshit 4y ago
This is a clickbait-y title that at best, misunderstands his motives, and at worst, misrepresents what is in actuality happening. The "right" has historically had more implied trust from heavy-duty surveillance mechanisms of government than the left. What the left is doing is censoring "politically-incorrect" (as they see fit) speech, and banning accounts; this then is driving members censored/shadow-banned/outright banned by the leftist thread of big tech consumer companies to find/invent tech alternatives. This then is opening up a potential Pandora's box of surveillance problems for such surveillance mechanisms; for example, the historical reality of Microsoft's origins wasn't at all what Microsoft's P.R. department claimed ("Bill Gates is a unique entrepreneurial genius and gift to mankind, not unlike the second coming of Jesus (actually literally-stated implications of a popular Gates-criticizing Reddit post from about a year or so ago that got immediately brigaded by a swarm of bots/P.R. agents all lavishing praise on everything Gates-related), but rather a practical measure taken to address a then-serious and quickly-growing-out-of-control practical problem: before Microsoft, the home computer market had something in the order of 3,700+ unique operating systems; a decision was made that it would be far more efficient to take a "Lord of the Rings" approach rather than having experts on hand uniquely-qualified in all 3,700+ OSs. What Thiel is doing by signaling to the "Far Right" which is in itself another emotionally-triggering clickbait term meant to get more views from the left rather than an accurate depiction of political reality is simply extending his historical approach to its logical conclusion. The surveillance mechanisms came out with a project that mysteriously was "discontinued" literally days before "Thefacebook.com" was registered as a domain name; said project literally described ... pretty much "Facebook" to a tee. Now Facebook and other social media companies are viewed as not only "Leftist" in politics (abstractly mostly irrelevant), but in their application of their political leaning, by kicking out an increasingly-larger portion of the populace who doesn't "adopt" their "way of thinking" ... these social media institutions are ironically doing the exact opposite of what the surveillance mechanism wants them to do: corral users into homogenous, easy-to-track pens. He's not at all "tearing down tech" as much as signaling that it may be time for "yet another" social media giant that is more permissive in its approach to user content, and so can more easily attract a larger audience in a homogenous technical pen that will be easier to keep track of automatically instead of having human analysts constantly trying to keep track of things manually by interacting with a dozen or more increasingly wonky user interfaces.

31 points by fortran77 4y ago

Cached: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wlJHgNbQI18J:https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/19/peter-thiel-facebook-new-right/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wlJHgN...

seydor 4y ago

Thiel was an early believer that democracy is incompatible with freedom. And popular social media proved it even more right by making people believe that what's popular is truth, and then manipulating what s popular. It was a mistake from the start to believe in it. I hope he gets back on his libertarian roots and quits changing the world through democracy.

fny 4y ago
Thiel actively manipulates these same channels for his benefit. If you think he wasn't selling into the bitcoin pump all of last year that he helped provoke, you're incredibly naive. Much in the same way Musk pumped his own stock and sold (along with his brother) at the top. Thiel has no principles. He is an empire builder. His goal is to protect his wealth and build it through whatever means possible. The writing is on the wall for big tech, and he has changed his tune accordingly.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  > Thiel actively manipulates these same channels for his benefit. That's what GP is saying...
- bko 4y ago
  How was Thiel pumping bitcoin and manipulating social media channels? He has no social media presence at all. I saw one speech at a Bitcoin conference that no one else really watched and I figured he liked the tech due to his politics. But he wasn't pumping it. > Much in the same way Musk pumped his own stock and sold (along with his brother) at the top. If he had a crystal ball about the future of the market and Tesla stock, why didn't he sell more? Seems like he left a lot of money on the table. > Thiel has no principles. He is an empire builder. His goal is to protect his wealth and build it through whatever means possible There are a lot of things you can say about Thiel but he's not all about protecting his wealth. He personally spent $10 million to fight Gawker for refusing a court order to take down an illegal sex tape of someone. He also suffered a huge reputational hit by supporting and funding Trump early on. He has principles, just ones that you may not agree with.
anovikov 4y ago
I agree with this thesis. Democracy is indeed, incompatible with freedom. Most of the human rights and freedoms we perceive to be essential today, only appeared because in the times when they were invented (late 18th century), technology and social structure ensured that only elites could use them (so "universal"-ness of these rights was a lie), or no one at all could use them for harm. When technology changed, we could see these liberties as harmful. Freedom to own and bear arms was OK in the times of muskets, they were too slow to reload to try a school shooting. Freedom of speech was OK when it was about freedom to print and distribute a pamphlet (which meant having cash, connection, and rare level of education = belonging to the elite). Now we have to either scrap democracy (resort to the kind of Putinism where police state ensures that there are no school shootings, and opinions of people do not matter thus making freedom of speech harmless), or scrap freedom, like in the Western Europe where the acceptable corridor of opinions and behaviour for expressing themselves without becoming outcasts is so narrow that no sort of public activity not sanctioned by the government appears possible. Or more likely, what's going on already will just get stronger: switch to a two-tiered world where will be large nations comprised mainly of brainwashed serfs, and smaller rich nations where elites will still enjoy all rights and freedoms - harmless because they are elites, and sustainable because they are fed by money plundered from the aforementioned large nations.
- cyber_kinetist 4y ago
  I also agree that the two are incompatible, but in a different way: why don't we ditch the liberal concept of freedom and save democracy instead? From the Online Etymology Dictionary, "freedom": > Old English freodom "power of self-determination, state of free will; emancipation from slavery, deliverance;" see free (adj.) + -dom. > Meaning "exemption from arbitrary or despotic control, civil liberty" is from late 14c. > Meaning "possession of particular privileges" is from 1570s. Isn't it interesting that the definition of freedom has changed from escape from control, to control itself? This happened roughly around the time when the Enlightenment started and liberal thoughts were beginning to spread in Europe, which is also the time when ideas of private property and capitalism were starting to take shape. Take note that one of the most fundamental "freedoms" of liberalism which is private property, can only be enforced by the state with violence or threats of violence, usually done by the police or the army. So at this point freedom has become an oxymoron, since to be free one has to submit to total authority of the law. I think neoliberalism is just an extension of this contradiction - you are encouraged to participate "freely" in the free market, which is held by the global financial system which is backed by the dollar and consequently the military powers of the United States. No matter where you escape to, any economic activity has to be done through the hegemonic powers of the world, and losing access to it means doom for your country and your people (ex. Cuba). So I view Thiel's search for his ultimate ideal of freedom by ditching democracy is futile, since the liberal conception of freedom itself was already contradictory and impossible to achieve. He can only think of more totalitarian ways to enforce a "free" system upon the people (so probably they can do whatever they want, like you have already said). The problem is that believing in contradictions don't automatically make societies fall, as Deleuze has said: "No one has ever died from contradictions. And the more it breaks down, the more it schizophrenizes, the better it works, the American way.” So as you have described nicely in your last sentence, most people will continue to get fucked regardless, until we fucking do something about it. By the way, Graeber has written a lot about the subject of freedom in many of his books and papers (the most evident one being his last book "The Dawn of Everything" co-written by Wengrow.) I think you'll enjoy his works if you have some shared sympathies with Thiel's views of libertarianism, regardless of if you're labelled left/right in the current political climate. Graeber has once written about a topic Thiel was also interested in ("Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit": https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declini...), and they've also met together and had a debate about this topic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF0cz9OmCGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF0cz9OmCGw).
walkhour 4y ago
What's popular is truth for most people, since humans are herd animals, and being a contrarian can mean being marginalized. In the antebellum South slavery was morally right, and it required to be a true outlier to speak out against it. People didn't independently discover this morality, they just copied what's popular.
- spiderice 4y ago
  You’re conflating truth and opinion. “Slavery is morally right” is an opinion (a shitty one), not a “truth”. Lying about objective truth is a much more egregious offense than pushing your shitty opinion, imo
  - walkhour 4y ago
    > You’re conflating truth and opinion This thread is discussing conflating popular opinions and truth.
- yucky 4y ago
  >In the antebellum South slavery was morally right I don't think this is correct, abolitionism was a thing particularly within the most religious (read:moral) groups of people. Only a tiny fraction of southerners owned slaves, most estimates put that number at under 2% of the population, and there isn't much evidence that the owners of slaves even claimed to have the moral high ground, let alone the 98% of the population that didn't own slaves. That's not to say abolitionists saw all races as equal, and it also doesn't ignore those who tried to roll out the story of Ham to justify slavery, but there was no consensus on the morality of the institution even at its height. If there were and if it were considered the morally "right" thing to do then we would have seen far more people becoming slave owners, especially among the most religious. Slavery was essentially a business decision, not a moral one. And not a very good business decision either, even if you can look past the evil of it all.
  - Flozzin 4y ago
    Just want to call out your 2% of the population claim. While maybe it is, 'technically correct', it gives a false impression. Slaves were counted among the population, thus skewing the number. Also, wives/women would not be counted as owning slaves, even if their husbands did. Same could be said about their children. "The 1860 census shows that in the states that would soon secede from the Union, an average of more than 32 percent of white families owned enslaved people. Some states had far more slave owners (46 percent of families in South Carolina, 49 percent in Mississippi) while some had far fewer (20 percent of families in Arkansas)." (https://www.history.com/news/5-myths-about-slavery https://www.history.com/news/5-myths-about-slavery)

mark_l_watson 4y ago

I have mixed feelings about both Thiel and his “Zero to One” coauthor Blake Masters who is running for Senator in my state of Arizona. I really don’t like either of their politics, but I enjoyed reading their book twice and agree with them on a a few philosophical things.

baybal2 4y ago
bko 4y ago
I too really enjoyed his book and speeches and similarly am not necessarily on board with a lot of his politics. I can't really square the reasoning though. I can't pinpoint the disconnect between their ideas and prescriptions. I feel the same way about Taleb. I read all his books, some more than once and they taught me a lot. But sometimes he just has ridiculous positions and behavior. But with him I attribute to being incredibly petty and thin-skinned. For instance Snowden pointed out a series of tweets where he called people imbeciles and other names and now he literally tweets every month about how he's a fraud, traitor and Russian stooge. Same happened with an author of a popular Bitcoin book for which Taleb wrote an introduction praising Bitcoin. Since then Taleb disagreed with the covid policy criticisms coming from the author and all of a sudden Bitcoin was a ponzi scheme. It's really sad
- qqqwerty 4y ago
  The skills required to be a good capitalist are almost in direct opposition to the skills needed for good governance. Capitalism requires a certain degree of ruthlessness, a lot of risk taking, and maximizing efficiency. Politics (ideally) requires empathy, risk mitigation, and consensus building. It also doesn't help that Thiel is a bit of a troll when it comes to politics. When talking about business/startups he comes across as fairly reasonable and composed. But when it comes to politics his words and actions take on a more Trumpian tone. And this tone pre-dates Trump's influence on politics. For example his Stanford Review work was fairly troll-ish in nature.
  - 4y ago

ulu21 4y ago

I don't have a lot of sympathy for Thiel, however, going against threats for free speech in big tech platforms and "trying to tear it all down" are two quite different things. So the title is overly alarmistic IMHO. Greetings from Western Europe, we're I feel we still have better balance in both liberty and moderation.

Covzire 4y ago
Typical WP hit piece on someone who doesn't tow the Democratic party line.

AzzieElbab 4y ago

If I were an American I would settle for any democratic political power other than what they have now. The sheer display of corruption and incompetence is simply overwhelming.

boeingUH60 4y ago

I've always respected Thiel for his entrepreneurial prowess...But jeez, his politics are pretty insane (Note that I'm not American, but from a faraway land and nonetheless can sense this from my armchair). The guy seems like a maniac with an aim to get whatever he wants, however he wants, with no care for the external effects.

feet 4y ago
From someone in the US, yes he is insane. We have a large growing far right nationalist movement and its pretty sad
- throwntoday 4y ago
  I'm curious, do you believe far right is the sad part or nationalism? I ask this because naturally I find both the far left and far right equally insane in their convictions (which never stand up to scrutiny). But being against nationalism is a separate issue and seems equally looney to me.
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    Both. Nationalism is not the same as patriotism. Patriotism is great. Nationalism breeds Ayn Rand insanity mixed with supremacist views.
    - throwntoday 4y ago
      I believe in putting the needs of my nation, and my countrymen above all else. Is that nationalism? I am not against helping others, but not while there is still a single American suffering. Is that a supremacist view? Basically, remember to put on your oxygen mask before helping others.
      - jamithon 4y ago
        > but not while there is still a single American suffering As there will always be someone somewhere suffering, this just sounds like an excuse not to help others.

bwanab 4y ago

Basically, there was money to be made building it. And now there’s money to be made tearing it down.

syberiyxx 4y ago

FooBarBizBazz 4y ago

There's a little bit of an implication in the piece that Thiel's anti-China stance is bad. The implication is set up simply by juxtaposition with other more objectionable things. But, in isolation, it's reasonable. Like this: > Thiel began to espouse increasingly strong anti-China views, including the belief that U.S. tech companies were harboring Chinese spies. In 2019 he claimed that Google, a longtime target of Thiel’s attacks, was being “infiltrated” by Chinese intelligence and called the company “treasonous.” He later attacked Apple for relying on China for its supply chain. Like, Google probably does have CCP intelligence inside. And Apple's reliance on China is a problem. And, even though Google did originally have some Defense ties (especially via Eric Schmidt. Also connections to the Obama White House, and maybe to CIA (for Google Earth)), it absolutely has refused to work on Defense (project Maven; attempts to move Boston Dynamics out of Defense). Is he actually wrong here? I would hope that America's Democrats are not going to be to China as Germany's Socialists and Greens are to Russia. And I don't think they are in general; remember the Pacific Pivot was Obama's. Thiel can be right about this one thing.

GWBullshit 4y ago

This is a clickbait-y title that at best, misunderstands his motives, and at worst, misrepresents what is in actuality happening. The "right" has historically had more implied trust from heavy-duty surveillance mechanisms of government than the left. What the left is doing is censoring "politically-incorrect" (as they see fit) speech, and banning accounts; this then is driving members censored/shadow-banned/outright banned by the leftist thread of big tech consumer companies to find/invent tech alternatives. This then is opening up a potential Pandora's box of surveillance problems for such surveillance mechanisms; for example, the historical reality of Microsoft's origins wasn't at all what Microsoft's P.R. department claimed ("Bill Gates is a unique entrepreneurial genius and gift to mankind, not unlike the second coming of Jesus (actually literally-stated implications of a popular Gates-criticizing Reddit post from about a year or so ago that got immediately brigaded by a swarm of bots/P.R. agents all lavishing praise on everything Gates-related), but rather a practical measure taken to address a then-serious and quickly-growing-out-of-control practical problem: before Microsoft, the home computer market had something in the order of 3,700+ unique operating systems; a decision was made that it would be far more efficient to take a "Lord of the Rings" approach rather than having experts on hand uniquely-qualified in all 3,700+ OSs. What Thiel is doing by signaling to the "Far Right" which is in itself another emotionally-triggering clickbait term meant to get more views from the left rather than an accurate depiction of political reality is simply extending his historical approach to its logical conclusion. The surveillance mechanisms came out with a project that mysteriously was "discontinued" literally days before "Thefacebook.com" was registered as a domain name; said project literally described ... pretty much "Facebook" to a tee. Now Facebook and other social media companies are viewed as not only "Leftist" in politics (abstractly mostly irrelevant), but in their application of their political leaning, by kicking out an increasingly-larger portion of the populace who doesn't "adopt" their "way of thinking" ... these social media institutions are ironically doing the exact opposite of what the surveillance mechanism wants them to do: corral users into homogenous, easy-to-track pens. He's not at all "tearing down tech" as much as signaling that it may be time for "yet another" social media giant that is more permissive in its approach to user content, and so can more easily attract a larger audience in a homogenous technical pen that will be easier to keep track of automatically instead of having human analysts constantly trying to keep track of things manually by interacting with a dozen or more increasingly wonky user interfaces.