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Most Americans I’ve interacted with think money is a reflection of your intelligence, so unfortunately as long as this guy has a net worth of billions he will b
by originalvichy 2y ago
Most Americans I’ve interacted with think money is a reflection of your intelligence, so unfortunately as long as this guy has a net worth of billions he will be powerful.
- desumeku 2y agoHow many EU politicians are poor, broke and humble?
- orwin 2y agoAt least one of them worked as a hostel cleaner until she was elected, and at least one of them was a temp worker who did odd jobs and gig work in parallel to his political action with 'La Jeune Garde'
- flyinglizard 2y agoI don't think the problem with Thiel is a lack of intelligence. Stupid people don't usually become a menace on a national (or indeed now, global) scale. May terrorize their household or maybe close neighbours, but don't have lots of reach beyond that.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- garden_hermit 2y agoThe thing is that people like Thiel are actually quite smart. The problem is that people really overrate “smartness”. Smart people are often dumb as hell.
- red-iron-pine 2y agocareful bro, you're posting this on HN of all places
- swat535 2y agoThe thing is, people like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos are undoubtedly intelligent, they were all lucky of course but I would argue that no one with below average IQ can use their initial luck to create additional opportunities and generate millions of dollars worth of wealth. That being said, I feel like we need to be more nuanced when we discuss "intelligence", because I think that it can have a multifaceted definition and people have a wide array of skillets. So I perhaps a better question would be something along the lines of "Intelligent in what way?"
- leshow 2y agoI agree that people are taught we have meritocracy that is not real, but the problem is that the billions are able to buy power, not what people think of his intelligence, to be clear.
- spacebanana7 2y agoPeter Thiel has a FIDE chess rating of 2199
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoWhile Elon Musk finds chess too boring and simple and that's why he has more money than Theil.
- spacebanana7 2y agoThat wealth accumulation and attitude to chess are probably just cope for losing too many games to his cofounder.
- psadauskas 2y ago"Most" might be a bit of a reach, but there has been a deliberate perversion of one of the American Founding Mythos: The "Protestant Work Ethic". God rewards those who are good, and punishes those who are bad. Therefore, if you're rich, its God rewarding you for being good, and if you're poor, God is punishing you. Therefore, we should help the rich, because they're good, and not help the poor, because they're bad. It's not spelled out this explicitly, but this has very much become the philosophy of the right-wing Evangelicals, and a big part of why they love Trump. He's rich, so anything he does is good, and he's really punishing those wicked poor people.
- randomcarbloke 2y agoThiel is smart though, smarter than the useful idiots he has parading around The White House.