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I'm going to try and explain how I understand Peter Thiel's worldview here, which I've learned from listening to him talk and reading what he writes. You can do

I'm going to try and explain how I understand Peter Thiel's worldview here, which I've learned from listening to him talk and reading what he writes. You can downvote this all you want, but I believe it's an accurate interpretation. I'll try to keep my own opinions out of it. To understand Thiel's position, you have to broaden your idea of harm past immediate harm to a single group of people. While I'm sure Thiel has personal economic concerns, his stated primary moral concern is preventing wealth redistribution, socialism, and the mass-scale violence that those programs have caused in the past. You can choose to believe him as to whether this is his true motivation or not, but you asked for an explanation of this worldview and that's what he's stuck with over 10+ years now. While you might be more worried about Nazis, Thiel is more worried about things like 1905 and 1917 Russian revolutions, the ensuing Red Terror, and mass starvation/poverty. About 20M people died in Russia during this time, mostly from starvation but up to 200,000 dead by being executed by the state for having the wrong political beliefs. And many more during the various violent uprisings and civil wars. Some of you reading this are going to huff and just disregard it, but for Thiel, preventing potential massive tragedy in the future is likely worth a tradeoff of some people being "harmed" now. Edit: the number of replies to your comment which basically amount to "he just doesn't care about others/he's rich so he's evil" indicate that even the Hacker News audience is not immune to believing in lazy explanations and supernatural forces. Google "The Myth of Pure Evil" for more on this.

lapcat 4y ago
"At San Mateo High School, he read Ayn Rand, admired the optimism and anti-communism of then-President Ronald Reagan" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Early_life_and_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Early_life_and_edu...
lazyeye 4y ago
It's a mystery to me how those on the left get to spend so much time focusing on the threat of nazism whilst completely ignoring their own horrific history. I dont know how they get away with it.
- lapcat 4y ago
  How would I, as a native born US Midwesterner, view the USSR or the PRC as "my own history"? Not to mention that the USSR and PRC have both transitioned from economic socialism to capitalism while retaining political totalitarianism. So maybe the economic system and the political system are separate issues? There are plenty of countries in western/northern Europe that are more socialist, and indeed more democratic, than the US. It's kind of like asking contemporary Christians how they get away with not focusing on the Spanish Inquisition. Why would someone today view that as "their own horrific history"?
  - mcv 4y ago
    The real problem for the oppression and deaths is the totalitarianism, rather than whether it's coming from the left of right. Both left and right-wing dictatorship have the capacity and opportunity for incredible cruelty. Healthy human rights-respecting democracies do not, regardless of their economic policies. Although extreme poverty can also be deadly and could be considered a form of oppression. There are good reasons why workers in capitalist countries fought hard for workers' rights 100 years ago.
  - lazyeye 4y ago
    I've no idea what the Spanish inquisition has to do with the clear and obvious tendency towards an oppressive totalitarianism by left-wing movements throughout history. I think you have to be willfully blind to deny this.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > I think you have to be willfully blind to deny this. In the future, please follow the HN guidelines. I'm done responding to you now. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - lazyeye 4y ago
        An easy out. I stand by my comment completely.
danans 4y ago
> preventing wealth redistribution, socialism, and the mass-scale violence that those programs have caused in the past > While you might be more worried about Nazis, Thiel is more worried about things like 1905 and 1917 Russian revolutions, the ensuing Red Terror, and mass starvation/poverty. That political violence was caused by competing authoritarian regimes, not socialism and wealth redistribution. If socialism were the cause, the US would have had a violent revolution after WW2, a time of very high wealth redistribution and the implementation of programs like Social Security and Medicare. Much of the current unrest in the US is caused by the stagnation of workers wages and quality of life in politically relevant places, not the opposite. That's far more like the situation in Germany prior to the rise of the Nazis.
ladyattis 4y ago
The problem with Thiel's worldview is that it's not all that accurate. Yes, the Soviet Union was a horrible authoritarian state but the alternative to it isn't any better especially if you're not in the United States or of its preferred/default social classes. The damage done by the USSR and the Russian civil war pale in comparison to the yearly death toll of millions from medical deprivation and starvation even after the Green Revolution (we still have a distribution problem wrt food and medicine). His solutions are basically go back to some form of feudalism but without there being a singular sovereign to keep the nobles of our age in check (i.e. him and other billionaires). The reality is that capitalism has been limping along post Cold War and it's not getting any better, so without there being an outside threat to unify ourselves around, its flaws are seen more keenly and felt more closely than in the past. If Thiel wants to stop the second Bolshevik revolt then he should focus on making wealth distribution through market means viable and support ending monopolies and enclosures of various commons (weaken IP law, reform land rights, and so forth).
- nradov 4y ago
  How many people die every year from medical deprivation? While that is a legitimate problem that we need to fix, I'm skeptical whether that could exceed the 100M who have been killed by Communism. https://victimsofcommunism.org/ https://victimsofcommunism.org/
  - mcv 4y ago
    > How many people die every year from medical deprivation? A quick search suggests figures ranging from 1 million to 40 million per year. So if you want to compare that to 100 million deaths by communism over the past 100 years, then preventable disease seems to kill at least roughly the same number of people, and possibly 40 times as many.
  - pasabagi 4y ago
    World population circa 1950 was like 2 billion. I don't know what the root study is that reaches that 100M figure, but the idea that communism killed one in twenty people on the whole planet seems a bit unlikely. The really high end figures for the worst[0] man-made disaster of all time (the famine during the great leap forward) are 42 million, no idea where you'd get the rest of the numbers from. [0]: edit: I thought it was the worst: apparently there were several previous famines in China in the 19th century that were more deadly.
mcv 4y ago
> Thiel is more worried about things like 1905 and 1917 Russian revolutions If we wants to prevent revolutions, he should be advocating for gradual change and a reduction in inequality, not fomenting culture war. Extreme inequality leads to revolution, and the civil war his people seem eager to instigate also seems contrary to his goals.
Teever 4y ago
> Some of you reading this are going to huff and just disregard it, but for Thiel, preventing potential massive tragedy in the future is likely worth a tradeoff of some people being "harmed" now. Let's say I agree with Thiel on this matter. We agree so much that I intend to drone strike Thiel. Is this position good or bad? How does it differ from that of Thiel?
- defen 4y ago
  If your argument is that directly murdering someone is equivalent to supporting politicians who support policies which you don't like, you've already lost. Why not just murder the people who voted for the politicians that Thiel supported while you're at it?
  - Teever 4y ago
    You're right. Murder is wrong. Now if I was to design, test, and debug these devices, then release the blueprints along with a manifesto that lists what I feel are problems in society and who I feel are causing the problems, how would that be different from what Thiel is doing?
    - Vecr 4y ago
      That's probably legal if you are careful enough. You might get railroaded though, political prosecutions are a thing in the US.
      - Teever 4y ago
        You're right, I should more closely mimic Thiel by hiring some talking heads for social media platforms. One to disseminate the blueprints, and the other for the manifesto.
        defen 4y ago
        Is your argument that Thiel is arguing for murder, in a roundabout way? Can you give an example of that?
BeFlatXIII 4y ago
…yet the measures meant to prevent economic redistributionism may be exactly what entices the populace to choose violence.
theGnuMe 4y ago
Do you have any links to first person evidence that "his stated primary moral concern is preventing wealth redistribution, socialism, and the mass-scale violence" .. I'd be interested in reading them. Someone on this forum the other day suggested reading the book "Who Owns the Future?" by Jaron Lanier. I am only a few chapters in but it has been interesting to see the argument that Walmart prevented WW3 with China and at the same time the amassing of computation, digital networking and information is hollowing out the middle classes and driving economic inequality. Fascinating stuff that any true capitalist should read.

lapcat 4y ago

"At San Mateo High School, he read Ayn Rand, admired the optimism and anti-communism of then-President Ronald Reagan" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Early_life_and_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Early_life_and_edu...

lazyeye 4y ago

It's a mystery to me how those on the left get to spend so much time focusing on the threat of nazism whilst completely ignoring their own horrific history. I dont know how they get away with it.

lapcat 4y ago
How would I, as a native born US Midwesterner, view the USSR or the PRC as "my own history"? Not to mention that the USSR and PRC have both transitioned from economic socialism to capitalism while retaining political totalitarianism. So maybe the economic system and the political system are separate issues? There are plenty of countries in western/northern Europe that are more socialist, and indeed more democratic, than the US. It's kind of like asking contemporary Christians how they get away with not focusing on the Spanish Inquisition. Why would someone today view that as "their own horrific history"?
- mcv 4y ago
  The real problem for the oppression and deaths is the totalitarianism, rather than whether it's coming from the left of right. Both left and right-wing dictatorship have the capacity and opportunity for incredible cruelty. Healthy human rights-respecting democracies do not, regardless of their economic policies. Although extreme poverty can also be deadly and could be considered a form of oppression. There are good reasons why workers in capitalist countries fought hard for workers' rights 100 years ago.
- lazyeye 4y ago
  I've no idea what the Spanish inquisition has to do with the clear and obvious tendency towards an oppressive totalitarianism by left-wing movements throughout history. I think you have to be willfully blind to deny this.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > I think you have to be willfully blind to deny this. In the future, please follow the HN guidelines. I'm done responding to you now. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - lazyeye 4y ago
      An easy out. I stand by my comment completely.

danans 4y ago

> preventing wealth redistribution, socialism, and the mass-scale violence that those programs have caused in the past > While you might be more worried about Nazis, Thiel is more worried about things like 1905 and 1917 Russian revolutions, the ensuing Red Terror, and mass starvation/poverty. That political violence was caused by competing authoritarian regimes, not socialism and wealth redistribution. If socialism were the cause, the US would have had a violent revolution after WW2, a time of very high wealth redistribution and the implementation of programs like Social Security and Medicare. Much of the current unrest in the US is caused by the stagnation of workers wages and quality of life in politically relevant places, not the opposite. That's far more like the situation in Germany prior to the rise of the Nazis.

ladyattis 4y ago

The problem with Thiel's worldview is that it's not all that accurate. Yes, the Soviet Union was a horrible authoritarian state but the alternative to it isn't any better especially if you're not in the United States or of its preferred/default social classes. The damage done by the USSR and the Russian civil war pale in comparison to the yearly death toll of millions from medical deprivation and starvation even after the Green Revolution (we still have a distribution problem wrt food and medicine). His solutions are basically go back to some form of feudalism but without there being a singular sovereign to keep the nobles of our age in check (i.e. him and other billionaires). The reality is that capitalism has been limping along post Cold War and it's not getting any better, so without there being an outside threat to unify ourselves around, its flaws are seen more keenly and felt more closely than in the past. If Thiel wants to stop the second Bolshevik revolt then he should focus on making wealth distribution through market means viable and support ending monopolies and enclosures of various commons (weaken IP law, reform land rights, and so forth).

nradov 4y ago
How many people die every year from medical deprivation? While that is a legitimate problem that we need to fix, I'm skeptical whether that could exceed the 100M who have been killed by Communism. https://victimsofcommunism.org/ https://victimsofcommunism.org/
- mcv 4y ago
  > How many people die every year from medical deprivation? A quick search suggests figures ranging from 1 million to 40 million per year. So if you want to compare that to 100 million deaths by communism over the past 100 years, then preventable disease seems to kill at least roughly the same number of people, and possibly 40 times as many.
- pasabagi 4y ago
  World population circa 1950 was like 2 billion. I don't know what the root study is that reaches that 100M figure, but the idea that communism killed one in twenty people on the whole planet seems a bit unlikely. The really high end figures for the worst[0] man-made disaster of all time (the famine during the great leap forward) are 42 million, no idea where you'd get the rest of the numbers from. [0]: edit: I thought it was the worst: apparently there were several previous famines in China in the 19th century that were more deadly.

mcv 4y ago

> Thiel is more worried about things like 1905 and 1917 Russian revolutions If we wants to prevent revolutions, he should be advocating for gradual change and a reduction in inequality, not fomenting culture war. Extreme inequality leads to revolution, and the civil war his people seem eager to instigate also seems contrary to his goals.

Teever 4y ago

> Some of you reading this are going to huff and just disregard it, but for Thiel, preventing potential massive tragedy in the future is likely worth a tradeoff of some people being "harmed" now. Let's say I agree with Thiel on this matter. We agree so much that I intend to drone strike Thiel. Is this position good or bad? How does it differ from that of Thiel?

defen 4y ago
If your argument is that directly murdering someone is equivalent to supporting politicians who support policies which you don't like, you've already lost. Why not just murder the people who voted for the politicians that Thiel supported while you're at it?
- Teever 4y ago
  You're right. Murder is wrong. Now if I was to design, test, and debug these devices, then release the blueprints along with a manifesto that lists what I feel are problems in society and who I feel are causing the problems, how would that be different from what Thiel is doing?
  - Vecr 4y ago
    That's probably legal if you are careful enough. You might get railroaded though, political prosecutions are a thing in the US.
    - Teever 4y ago
      You're right, I should more closely mimic Thiel by hiring some talking heads for social media platforms. One to disseminate the blueprints, and the other for the manifesto.
      - defen 4y ago
        Is your argument that Thiel is arguing for murder, in a roundabout way? Can you give an example of that?

BeFlatXIII 4y ago

…yet the measures meant to prevent economic redistributionism may be exactly what entices the populace to choose violence.

theGnuMe 4y ago

Do you have any links to first person evidence that "his stated primary moral concern is preventing wealth redistribution, socialism, and the mass-scale violence" .. I'd be interested in reading them. Someone on this forum the other day suggested reading the book "Who Owns the Future?" by Jaron Lanier. I am only a few chapters in but it has been interesting to see the argument that Walmart prevented WW3 with China and at the same time the amassing of computation, digital networking and information is hollowing out the middle classes and driving economic inequality. Fascinating stuff that any true capitalist should read.