5 ms·

This is the article's second sentence: "Thiel’s lurid, apocalyptic view of world politics may be ludicrous or even deranged, but his wealth and power mean that

This is the article's second sentence: "Thiel’s lurid, apocalyptic view of world politics may be ludicrous or even deranged, but his wealth and power mean that we can’t afford to ignore it."

fastball 11mo ago
Power might be hard to ignore, but wealth you literally just can.
- subw00f 11mo ago
  Wealth is power
  - fastball 11mo ago
    Then surely GC would've only needed to say "power"?
- dpark 11mo ago
  It’s naive to believe these are not connected. Wealth buys power.
  - palmotea 11mo ago
    > It’s naive to believe these are not connected. Wealth buys power. Raw power > wealth (see Putin, Vladimir: he doesn't need wealth or even to "own" anything, his raw power gets him everything wealth can buy and more). But for weaker people who aren't so powerful to control the system itself, wealth can get you a lot of power within that system.
  - fastball 11mo ago
    They are not intrinsically connected. Not everyone who is wealthy is powerful, not everyone who is powerful is wealthy.
- b00ty4breakfast 11mo ago
  "lemme just jump in this swimming pool while ignoring the water"
- SimianSci 11mo ago
  Wealth is allowing people to buy consent for their worldviews these days. this is an incredibly naiive take.
  - IncreasePosts 11mo ago
    How does one buy consent for a worldview? Buying and selling require two parties - the party who is selling their viewpoint to the highest bidder isn't blameless.
    - lenkite 11mo ago
      The party who accepts the bid generally wins the election.
    - relaxing 11mo ago
      Traditionally, through personal networks in media and industry — placing talking heads and op-ed’s and editorial direction to repeat your message. More recently, purchasing a social network and then flooding it with your worldview.
  - strictlymomo 11mo ago
    When you say “these days,” you mean the past 10,000 years, right? Power based on consent likely existed throughout the Holocene: “Big men” with their gift-giving and elaborate feasts, chiefdoms comprised of aristocratic lineages… the gameplan has always been to collect favors by promising future returns, religious blessings, and the like. You can see the parallels to present-day VC. These pre-historic admin dudes emerged alongside the steepening wealth inequality gradients and population growths of agrarian societies. Comforting to know their influence is limited and precarious, as the social following can always fragment. This is what anthropologists call segmentary structures. More interesting, if severely depressing, is the theory that power based on consent is arguably the precondition for scaling social cohesion beyond kin and villages to cities and civilizations, thereby serving as the foundation for more durable power structures.
  - fastball 11mo ago
    If you have bought consent, you have power.
- flag_fagger 11mo ago
  They’re roughly proxies for each other. But I think land is a much more fundamental source of power. Makes sense that a lot of these types have started to invest in defense fortresses and opine about building new cities.
- forgetfreeman 11mo ago
  That's a dangerously myopic take in a political landscape where money == speech and speech == influence.
- BugsJustFindMe 11mo ago
  It's weird to not understand that wealth buys power.
- lenkite 11mo ago
  How does a politician or his opponent ignore millions of dollars donated to political campaigns ?
epgui 11mo ago
Presumably the commenter read the article and is expressing his disagreement with the article’s second sentence.
- bigbadfeline 11mo ago
  > Presumably the commenter read the article and is expressing his disagreement with the article’s second sentence. The comment in question didn't make a point, it provided only this unsupported opinion that happens to be flatly wrong: "It's a very different thing to have concentrated wealth and people's attention." In fact, good buddies Thiel and Musk came from S Africa sharing similar librarian attitudes and both worked hard at circumventing the banking regulations while being part of the "PayPal mafia". They are both very keen on remodeling the government around the libertarian idea of uncountable corporate power. “They went from scrappy guys dodging government regulation to now they are the government, in a generation” said Steve Blank... an adjunct professor of management science [1] That cannot be done without using concentrated wealth to conquer people's attention. Sure enough, Musk proceeded to acquire Twitter at a great cost and to proclaim his idea of corporate control of speech through control of attention reach: "Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach" [2] [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/how-musk-thiel-and-sacks-took-silicon-valley-to-the-white-house/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/how-musk-thiel-and-sac... [2] https://www.chiefmarketer.com/twitters-musk-touts-new-freedom-of-speech-not-freedom-of-reach-moderation-policy/ https://www.chiefmarketer.com/twitters-musk-touts-new-freedo...
  - esseph 11mo ago
    Librarians, what will they do next?!? (Typo ;)
    - bigbadfeline 11mo ago
      yes, typo, should read "libertarians" Thanks
donchuru 11mo ago
Yes we can actually. I think it has something to do with Silicon Valley's obsession with money. To SV-people, billionaires are like gods. They are worshipped and invited to all the events worth going to (meetups, hackathons, etc.). Everyone wants to be like them. And it seems to me to be a geographical problem too. In NYC, billionaires are like supervillains. Nobody particularly likes them (outside of select finance bros), and people openly express disdain for them and their greed.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- entropicdrifter 11mo ago
  It's also a governmental problem. Remember that Vance is functionally owned by Thiel, who also backed Trump's campaign. So, the issue is really just that he has far too much power, as an individual
- dpark 11mo ago
  > In NYC, billionaires are like supervillains. This is absurd to the point of being cartoonish. No one treats billionaires like supervillains. How many billionaires are in supermax prisons right now in New York? > Nobody particularly likes them This is not relevant, regardless of whether it’s true. A ton of people hate Thiel and Trump. Disliking a billionaire doesn’t take away their power.
  - baseballdork 11mo ago
    > This is absurd to the point of being cartoonish. No one treats billionaires like supervillains. How many billionaires are in supermax prisons right now in New York? "Supervillains" are comic book entities who are rarely in prison
    - dpark 11mo ago
      Because they escape or cannot be captured. Not because there’s no will to lock them up. But this is really not my point. Billionaires == Supervillains is not a commonly held view outside some echo chambers.
palmotea 11mo ago
This exactly. There are different kind of attention. We shouldn't pay attention to the billionaires in a submissive follower mode; or in a "let them set the agenda" mode; but in a wary, defensive mode (ready to oppose or try to get out of the way).

This is the article's second sentence: "Thiel’s lurid, apocalyptic view of world politics may be ludicrous or even deranged, but his wealth and power mean that we can’t afford to ignore it."

fastball 11mo ago

Power might be hard to ignore, but wealth you literally just can.

subw00f 11mo ago
Wealth is power
- fastball 11mo ago
  Then surely GC would've only needed to say "power"?
dpark 11mo ago
It’s naive to believe these are not connected. Wealth buys power.
- palmotea 11mo ago
  > It’s naive to believe these are not connected. Wealth buys power. Raw power > wealth (see Putin, Vladimir: he doesn't need wealth or even to "own" anything, his raw power gets him everything wealth can buy and more). But for weaker people who aren't so powerful to control the system itself, wealth can get you a lot of power within that system.
- fastball 11mo ago
  They are not intrinsically connected. Not everyone who is wealthy is powerful, not everyone who is powerful is wealthy.
b00ty4breakfast 11mo ago
"lemme just jump in this swimming pool while ignoring the water"
SimianSci 11mo ago
Wealth is allowing people to buy consent for their worldviews these days. this is an incredibly naiive take.
- IncreasePosts 11mo ago
  How does one buy consent for a worldview? Buying and selling require two parties - the party who is selling their viewpoint to the highest bidder isn't blameless.
  - lenkite 11mo ago
    The party who accepts the bid generally wins the election.
  - relaxing 11mo ago
    Traditionally, through personal networks in media and industry — placing talking heads and op-ed’s and editorial direction to repeat your message. More recently, purchasing a social network and then flooding it with your worldview.
- strictlymomo 11mo ago
  When you say “these days,” you mean the past 10,000 years, right? Power based on consent likely existed throughout the Holocene: “Big men” with their gift-giving and elaborate feasts, chiefdoms comprised of aristocratic lineages… the gameplan has always been to collect favors by promising future returns, religious blessings, and the like. You can see the parallels to present-day VC. These pre-historic admin dudes emerged alongside the steepening wealth inequality gradients and population growths of agrarian societies. Comforting to know their influence is limited and precarious, as the social following can always fragment. This is what anthropologists call segmentary structures. More interesting, if severely depressing, is the theory that power based on consent is arguably the precondition for scaling social cohesion beyond kin and villages to cities and civilizations, thereby serving as the foundation for more durable power structures.
- fastball 11mo ago
  If you have bought consent, you have power.
flag_fagger 11mo ago
They’re roughly proxies for each other. But I think land is a much more fundamental source of power. Makes sense that a lot of these types have started to invest in defense fortresses and opine about building new cities.
forgetfreeman 11mo ago
That's a dangerously myopic take in a political landscape where money == speech and speech == influence.
BugsJustFindMe 11mo ago
It's weird to not understand that wealth buys power.
lenkite 11mo ago
How does a politician or his opponent ignore millions of dollars donated to political campaigns ?

epgui 11mo ago

Presumably the commenter read the article and is expressing his disagreement with the article’s second sentence.

bigbadfeline 11mo ago
> Presumably the commenter read the article and is expressing his disagreement with the article’s second sentence. The comment in question didn't make a point, it provided only this unsupported opinion that happens to be flatly wrong: "It's a very different thing to have concentrated wealth and people's attention." In fact, good buddies Thiel and Musk came from S Africa sharing similar librarian attitudes and both worked hard at circumventing the banking regulations while being part of the "PayPal mafia". They are both very keen on remodeling the government around the libertarian idea of uncountable corporate power. “They went from scrappy guys dodging government regulation to now they are the government, in a generation” said Steve Blank... an adjunct professor of management science [1] That cannot be done without using concentrated wealth to conquer people's attention. Sure enough, Musk proceeded to acquire Twitter at a great cost and to proclaim his idea of corporate control of speech through control of attention reach: "Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach" [2] [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/how-musk-thiel-and-sacks-took-silicon-valley-to-the-white-house/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/how-musk-thiel-and-sac... [2] https://www.chiefmarketer.com/twitters-musk-touts-new-freedom-of-speech-not-freedom-of-reach-moderation-policy/ https://www.chiefmarketer.com/twitters-musk-touts-new-freedo...
- esseph 11mo ago
  Librarians, what will they do next?!? (Typo ;)
  - bigbadfeline 11mo ago
    yes, typo, should read "libertarians" Thanks

donchuru 11mo ago

Yes we can actually. I think it has something to do with Silicon Valley's obsession with money. To SV-people, billionaires are like gods. They are worshipped and invited to all the events worth going to (meetups, hackathons, etc.). Everyone wants to be like them. And it seems to me to be a geographical problem too. In NYC, billionaires are like supervillains. Nobody particularly likes them (outside of select finance bros), and people openly express disdain for them and their greed.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
entropicdrifter 11mo ago
It's also a governmental problem. Remember that Vance is functionally owned by Thiel, who also backed Trump's campaign. So, the issue is really just that he has far too much power, as an individual
dpark 11mo ago
> In NYC, billionaires are like supervillains. This is absurd to the point of being cartoonish. No one treats billionaires like supervillains. How many billionaires are in supermax prisons right now in New York? > Nobody particularly likes them This is not relevant, regardless of whether it’s true. A ton of people hate Thiel and Trump. Disliking a billionaire doesn’t take away their power.
- baseballdork 11mo ago
  > This is absurd to the point of being cartoonish. No one treats billionaires like supervillains. How many billionaires are in supermax prisons right now in New York? "Supervillains" are comic book entities who are rarely in prison
  - dpark 11mo ago
    Because they escape or cannot be captured. Not because there’s no will to lock them up. But this is really not my point. Billionaires == Supervillains is not a commonly held view outside some echo chambers.

palmotea 11mo ago

This exactly. There are different kind of attention. We shouldn't pay attention to the billionaires in a submissive follower mode; or in a "let them set the agenda" mode; but in a wary, defensive mode (ready to oppose or try to get out of the way).